After setting an unwanted box office record, X-Men: Dark Phoenix director Simon Kinberg has now come forward and accepted the blame.
The latest mutant blockbuster was supposed to provide an "epic conclusion" to the X-Men series, with a cast including Sophie Turner, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence.
However, it's soon become obvious that Dark Phoenix, in Kinberg's own words, "didn't connect" with its target audience.
Related: X-Men: Dark Phoenix set to lose more than $100 million after box office failure
Speaking to KCRW's Kim Masters recently, Kinberg decided to hold his hands up.
"It clearly is a movie that didn't connect with audiences that didn't see it," he reflected, "it didn't connect enough with audiences that did see it. So that's on me.
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"I loved making the movie, and I loved the people I made the movie with."
At least he can look back on the filmmaking process as a positive experience, then?
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Meanwhile, Kinberg previously revealed to Digital Spy one of his regrets from his time working on 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand – which he helped write.
"I really felt that one of the mistakes we made with X-Men 3, which told in a way the Dark Phoenix story but it was the subplot of that film, one of the mistakes we made was that we didn't go cosmic with it, like the comics," he said.
"I think that was a time in superhero movies where that just wasn't being done."
X-Men: Dark Phoenix is out in cinemas now.
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20th Century Fox/Marvel X-Men: Days of Future Past - The Rogue Cut [streaming]
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Reporter, Digital Spy
Dan is a freelance entertainment journalist. Beginning his writing career in 2014, Dan's work first graced the pages of cult publications Starburst magazine and Little White Lies before moving onto Total Film, Digital Spy, NME and Yahoo Entertainment.
In the film and TV universe, he kneels at the altar of Jim Carrey, Daniel Plainview, Mike Ehrmantraut and Paulie Walnuts.
