'Dark Phoenix' is officially the worst performing 'X-Men' movie of all time

It’s official: X-Men: Dark Phoenix is the worst performing film in the Marvel franchise.

Simon Kinberg’s directorial debut took $254.4 million (£229.1 million) at the global box office and that’s the lowest grossing amount for any X-Men movie.

The film officially closed its run at cinemas worldwide following its release on 7 June, and its ticket sales were $40 million (£36 million) less than the first X-Men movie released in 2000.

2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past is the highest grossing X-Men movie in the franchise (excluding the Deadpool films), earning $747.9 million followed by 2017's Logan which took $619.0 million.

Writer-director Kinberg took responsibility for the movie flopping.

“It clearly is a movie that didn’t connect with the audiences that didn’t see it, it clearly didn’t connect enough with audiences that did see it, so that’s on me.”

Read more: Dark Phoenix was moved to keep James Cameron happy

“I’m here and I’m saying when a movie doesn’t work, put it on me. I’m the writer/director of the movie, the movie didn’t connect with audiences, that’s on me,” Kinberg told KCRW’s The Business podcast.

Dark Phoenix was a little more of a faithful adaptation of the X-Men comic book run of the same which centred on Jean Grey and the Phoenix Force, by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, and was flirted with in X-Men: The Last Stand.

In the comics, Jean consumes the power of a star and with the manipulation of the Hellfire Club's Mastermind she is driven mad and ends up destroying a solar system before sacrificing herself to save the universe from mass destruction.

In this version, Jean (Sophie Turner) conumes the cosmic energy which unleashes the Phoenix causing the death of Mystique and Hank and Erik to unite against her after she is manipulated by an alien called Vuk.

Read more: Gerard Butler wants to swap action for Shakespeare

Vuk is a leader of a shape-shifting alien race known as the D'Bari though it was revealed that originally they were going to be Skrulls but because of Captain Marvel the backstory was changed.

Now that the X-Men franchise is back under the control of Marvel Studios, following Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox, Kevin Feige will be steering the new narrative for the heroes.

The Marvel Studios boss confirmed there would be a new X-Men movie coming but the dust will settle on the disappointment ending to the original franchise before anything is announced.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix will be available on Digital Download on 28 September and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray & DVD on 7 October.