X-Men: Apocalypse was released in 2016, and is the closest 20th Century Fox ever came to delivering an MCU-style Marvel movie. Unfortunately, it didn't really work, and 2019's disastrous Dark Phoenix failed to make good on the promise of the costumes it debuted in the final few minutes.
The movie, directed by Bryan Singer, grossed $543.9 million at the worldwide box office, but was panned by critics (it sits at a "Rotten" 47% on Rotten Tomatoes).
Composer and editor John Ottman worked with Singer on several of his films, and even won an Oscar for their collaboration on the Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody.
Praising their partnership on 2014's X-Men: Days of Future Past, Ottman said he was able to provide instant feedback while working on the movie's edit, meaning Simon Kinberg would implement his notes while filming. As a result, reshoots were kept to a minimum.
In contrast, Singer's frequent absences from the X-Men: Apocalypse set made his life much harder. His issues with the script were largely ignored, and it started shooting without a finished third act. "I was given the script, and I had pages and pages of notes," Ottman explained. "I see things that are going to blow up in my face. For my own sanity, I can’t let the script be the way it is."
"Then we go into production, and we have no third act. It’s not unheard of, and I guess Marvel films that way, too. They have no ending, and they just wing it. "
"So, a lot of the problems I thought were going to happen, they exploded in my face," he continued. "For the third act, we were huddling with the team and the second unit director, and just coming up with s**t. Thank God for voice-overs. I don’t have good memories, but it’s also just a blur. It was a total, total, total nightmare to get that thing to where it was."
Ultimately, X-Men: Apocalypse was the beginning of the end for the franchise, and Simon Kinberg took over directing duties for Dark Phoenix. However, when Fox decided it should be one movie rather than two, the filmmaker somehow came up with an even worse effort than his previous take on the "Dark Phoenix Saga" (2006's X-Men: The Last Stand).
None of the movie's cast has reflected fondly on X-Men: Apocalypse, and in a year that also saw the release of Captain America: Civil War and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, it's been largely forgotten.