The situation has had longtime employees on the Fox lot suffering a kind of prolonged trauma since the merger was announced, in December 2017. To hear them tell it, they are being issued mostly vague, Orwellian-lite guidance that outlines dress codes and explains key-card access, but they have been left wanting in terms of business directives. In the middle of February, Fox’s marketing and distribution departments gathered with the filmmakers of Dark Phoenix, the latest X-Men installment from producer-director Simon Kinberg, to lay out their plans for the film’s June release. It was a typical meeting. Ad buys were discussed, and the publicity tour for the film’s stars, including Sophie Turner, Jennifer Lawrence, and Jessica Chastain, was laid out. But it was still disconcerting, both because of all the new faces in the room—a handful of high-end consultants have been hired temporarily to fill the jobs recently vacated by long-term employees—and because of the ad hoc approach the Fox marketing team was taking toward the film’s release, four months away.
“We know when we are dropping a trailer, but we are nowhere near where we should be at this time,” said one marketing exec who was at the meeting. “It’s frightening. I would be mad if I were a filmmaker.”
