Simon Kinberg on lessons learned from DARK PHOENIX.

Speaking with Discussing Film, X-Men film producer and screenwriter Simon Kinberg reflected on his journey in choosing to direct DARK PHOENIX for (then) 20th Century Fox. He explained how the movie faced issues with various release date changes, bad marketing, and a firestorm of negative press – some false, some true – that lingered since filming began.

“I just got excited about doing it in an unfiltered way, where it really was my vision,” Kinberg said about deciding to film the (unintended) final series entry after strong encouragement from the cast. “Dark Phoenix was the perfect way to do it, even though obviously, taking on a movie of that scale as your first one was pretty daunting, but that’s a family I knew so well. I knew those actors, they were close and so many of them remain close friends. I adore every single one of them. I felt very safe in that environment. I learned a lot from that first time directing, you learn a lot from the first time you do anything, I mean, the lessons would be too long for this conversation. But I learned a lot beyond just the directing and the editing of the movie, I learned a lot about, you know, the marketing of the movie, I learned a lot about dating and distribution and things that I thought I knew everything about from producing.”

With his second film, THE 355, he’s gaining more experience and understanding of how a director needs his hands in every area of production. That said, the film faced it’s own issues with release date changes in this pandemic. While Dark Phoenix scored a 22% critics consensus and 64% audience score, 355 improved a little bit with 25% for critics, and a bigger 85% from general viewers.

“When you’re a director, you’re just a little bit more immersed in the marketing process, creatively,” he continued. “So what I learned from Dark Phoenix, that I brought to this, was just to really make sure that there’s no category, department, or aspect of the movie that you take for granted. As a director, because there’s so many people that are working at the same time trying to fulfill your vision, you can take for granted some things. If you don’t keep an eye on as much as you can possibly keep an eye on, you’ll end up with compromised versions of your vision.”

Read more from the interview by clicking here.