Posted on 11/18/2017 7:08:57 AM PST by Simon Green
Justice League‘s Friday, coming off a solid $13 million Thursday, is landing at the high end of its midday estimate with $38.4M, however, Warner Bros./DC’s superhero ensemble is falling well short of $100M with an industry estimate of $93.5M over three-days, quite far from tracking’s $110M-$120M projection.
How dismal is this?
This event movie at a reported estimated production cost of $300M was ten years in the making, and was intended to be the pinnacle for the Warner Bros./DC universe introducing new characters such as The Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman who could hold their own franchise weight with their own solo outings. But an opening that’s 44% lower than Batman v. Superman‘s $166M opening? Ouch.
On a bit of an upside, audiences seem to be enjoying Justice League more than critics’ 39% Rotten Tomatoes score: CinemaScore crowds gave Justice League a B+, the same as Suicide Squad and an improvement on BvS‘s ‘B’. CinemaScore’s audience sentiment jives with what PostTrak saw on Thursday night with a four-out-of-five star score, 85% overall positive and high 69% definite recommend. Females (42%) liked Justice League more than men (58%), giving it an A- to their B+. Under 25 (31%) gave the super friends movie an A-. Man, if they could only show up en masse now.
Surely anything under $100M isn’t making Warner Bros brass happy: This is DC’s Avengers. It’s the zenith of their comic book movie universe. Should Justice League find an extra set of super powers this weekend, and re-power to $100M, it’s still hard to jump up and down since Justice League before P&A cost double what Wonder Woman did ($149M) with the Joss Whedon reshoots, etc.
Last time with BvS, fanboys and critics dinged that movie for Zack Snyder’s less meat, no filling visualist style coupled with that pic’s moody tone and tiresome running time. After the tepid response to BvS (the movie was profitable at $105M+), why did Warner Bros. have Snyder and the pic’s screenwriter Chris Terrio go through the motions all over again on Justice League? Warner Bros. brass fielded some of fans’ concerns: Justice League is shorter at two hours (to BvS’ 2 1/2 hour run time) and has more humor thanks to The Flash and Aquaman due to Avengers helmer Joss Whedon stepping in for Snyder after the director had to step away due to an unfortunate tragedy. Despite the promise that Whedon might bring, there was no way he could reshoot the entire movie. As one rival studio executive told Deadline, “I’ve never heard of a director completely changing the DNA of a movie when he’s called in for reshoots. That’s inherent in the script from the onset.”
I’ll watch it on DVD in six months when the library has its free copy.
the DC suits and management are clueless.
zero continuity.
no adherence to any cannon.
total indifference to anything not politically correct.
(note: no truth justice and the American way)
DC is scared of marvel. fear. That is why they botched the plot and storyline of wonderwoman. (dc was afraid of captain America)
there are going to be THREE separate joker movie versions.
When you have Ben Affleck as Batman, and a SJW playing Superman how can you lose? What they forget is the popularity of these fictional characters is based on their upholding American justice and American values. They don’t really fit in today’s culture of coddled victimisation and increasingly queer values.
Too bad really. These are my favorite characters and on the Marvel Disney hasn’t made a good film since first iron man.
the politics of actresses and actors is the health of the box office. see Dixie chix, anne heche, rock Hudson, etc. There was a reason the studio had strict moral and pr clauses.
And that douche bag Ben Afflicted.
Gaylord Focker as Batman is hilarious.
The upcoming slate of DC movies don’t look promising at all.
Yeah I think Affleck is partially to blame for the box office. Also, the terrible timing of the release, and the horrible reviews.
I blame the studio for cutting large amount of scenes from the original director’s cut.
even green lantern corps and deathstroke can’t save this film with their cameos.
i love dc universe, but marvel studio is doing a better job.
>>total indifference to anything not politically correct.
Worse than that. DC puts more effort into Suicide Squad than Justice League. Joker and Harley Quinn (two psychopathic killers) appeal to Millennials more than heroes.
Add that to Batman being somewhat insane now and actually weakening Superman enough so he could be killed by Doomsday in the last movie and fans of actual super-HEROES are left in the cold. I’ll watch JL(without the A) on PPV in a few months.
I read comics until the Death of Superman storyline in the mid-90s.
they are probably not connected at all.
just like mooves destroyed the star trek franchise once and for all.
My wife, 14 year old grandson and I saw it last night. All of us thought it was great. Word of mouth will help this movie. BTW, saw the new Thor recently; I liked it too but my wife liked JL better than Thor.
I am very happy I have lived long enough to see the comic books of my youth made into movies that aren’t big disappointments.
I’m wondering when Time-Lies-Warner-DC is going to continue going down this hole and give Supes and Batguy face tattoos, shiny grillz, and an emorap soundtrack by th’ late flash inna pan Lil Peep.
Let’s see how it trends next week when the holidays are here, kids are out of school, and mom wants to get rid of them for a few hours to cook/clean/recover/shop.
Personally, I think the downward trend is because of the over saturation of these types of movies, combined with the hype surrounding “The Last Jedi”. Also, having to spend $15 or more to see it at a reasonable hour, when the XD and 3D versions are all that’s shown except for the “regular” in the dinkiest theater they have.
They might also try telling their actors and directors and producers to shut up about politics. They are actors not politicians. Driving away fans because they are too self-centered to see the big picture from the outside looking in. Much like the kneeling NFL whiners lately. Cutting their noses off to spite their faces. And they don't seem to realize it. Yet.
When Hollywood just spends $300 million for an enhancement of some comic book heroes, they're headed down hill fast. Comic books? That's all they got? Even if their target audiences are young kids, even kids nowadays are more sophisticated than comic books. Hollywood needs to up their game quite a ways yet.
I know that movies are make-believe but now they are making make-believe movies about make-believe comic books that have make-believe heroes who are not the least believable in these make-believe films.
People have wised up and are fed up with the overpriced, under performed and delivered entertainment they are serving up nowadays.
Too many bad reviews, too much competition, too much trying to copy the competition. DC should do what DC is good at, Marvel is the shared universe company, DC is the silod story telling company. Be DC.
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