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Just finished watching it, yep it is awesome and violent..
Justice League' Box Office: Why A $96M Debut Is A Disaster
Scott Mendelson, CONTRIBUTOR
Nov 19, 2017 10:20 AM 3,481
Warner Bros.
‘Justice League’
Back in June of 1995, I was sure that Batman Forever would open with less than Batman Returns. The 1992 Tim Burton sequel had broken the opening weekend record that 1989’s Batman had set, earning $47 miillion in its debut frame. But the film’s macabre humor, grisly violence and outright kink caused outrage from parents and traumatized youngsters, and the film nosedived for a “mere” $162m domestic total, 35% less than the $251m earned by Batman.
So, to save their crown jewel superhero franchise, Warner Bros. traded Tim Burton for Joel Schumacher (then known for R-rated fare like The Lost Boys and Falling Down), brought in super-hot Jim Carrey as The Riddler, added Robin and traded in Burton’s expressionism for Schumacher’s neon day-glow explosion.Even with viewer disenchantment with the last movie, Batman Forever opened with another record-setting $52 million opening weekend, eventually earning $184m domestic (not much leggier than Batman Returns) and $330m worldwide, essentially saving the franchise at least until Batman & Robin proved a bridge too far.
It was a watershed moment in that back in the 1990’s there weren’t that many franchises that were so valuable that they had to be retooled or rebooted upon failure. If a sequel crapped out, Hollywood closed the door and moved on. Of course, in 1995, there were very few movies on the scale and with the spectacle offered by Batman Forever. But in 2017, a retooled comic book sequel like Justice League is no longer in a league of its own.
In adjusted-for-2017 grosses, Batman Forever’s opening weekend would be $108 million, or (not even accounting for 3D/IMAX/PLF bumps) $12m more than Justice League’s $96m domestic opening weekend. In 1995, Batman Forever cost around $100m (as opposed to the $250m+ Justice League), with far less marketing expenses and an arguably healthier post-theatrical future. To paraphrase Ewan McGregor’s big climactic monologue in Revenge of the Sith, Justice League was supposed to be the chosen one, but instead, it leaves the DC Films franchise shrouded in darkness and uncertainty.
The fifth movie in Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc.’s DC Films franchise, the big event superhero team-up movie, has now scored the lowest opening weekend of them all. Justice League just opened with $70 million less than Batman v Superman, $37m less than Suicide Squad, $32m less than Man of Steel and $7m less than Wonder Woman.
It is an odd thing to discuss a $96 million opening weekend as a calamity, but when the combined might of DC Comics’ biggest Super Friends opens smaller than a stand-alone Wonder Woman movie (at around half the budget), that’s bad. When the Super Friends movie sells not that many more tickets on opening weekend as the first (and 2D) Twilight on its debut weekend ($69m back in 2008), that’s bad. When recent history suggests that Justice League, even with the Thanksgiving holiday and the Christmas break, will be thrilled to earn a 2.26x (Man of Steel) to 2.35x (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I) weekend-to-final multiplier, with a possibility of a 2x multiplier (Batman v Superman, the Twilight Saga sequels), an under-$100m debut is an outright disaster.
It is possible that the kid-friendly, briskly-paced and relatively entertaining Justice League movie will leg it out over the next month. I’ll happily eat crow if that happens. I’ve been wrong before, be it underestimating the legs for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Star Trek into Darkness to giving The Amazing Spider-Man 2 the benefit of the doubt after a $92 million debut weekend.
But the reviews are bad, Wonder is proving to be an unexpected threat and Coco is going to be big next weekend, with Thor: Ragnarok still in the field. As noted above, Justice League isn’t the kind of one-of-a-kind spectacle that it might have been even six years ago. It should be the danger, as opposed to being in danger.
Justice League movie, with gazillions in reshoots and rewrites, with Joss Whedon brought in to fix/retool the movie and with DC Films arguably riding high after their first critical smash (Wonder Woman), just opened with less tickets sold over opening weekend than The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ($92m in 2014) and Godzilla ($93m in 2014). It sold fewer tickets in its opening weekend than Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II ($92m in 2011)sold in one day, and grossed just slightly more than the one-day totals of Batman v Superman ($81m in 2016), The Avengers ($80m in 2012) and Avengers: Age of Ultron ($84m in 2015).
In 2017, we’ve seen the Dark Universe killed at the start, we’ve seen Transformers inflict self-harm for the sake of a cinematic universe and now we’ve seen the would-be DC Films pay-off movie open far smaller than its predecessors. Hmm…
Occam’s Razor suggests that folks didn’t like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice so they stayed away from the sequel. Like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, a retooled, lighter, more kid-friendly “this is what the last film should have been” sequel was comparatively rejected because audiences sampled the last one out of curiosity and didn’t like it. If you consider Justice League to be the third chapter in Zack Snyder’s DC Films trilogy following Man of Steel and Dawn of Justice, then Justice League played like the third Divergent movie. Fans and general audiences decided not to be fooled for the third time.
Wonder Woman could only do so much for a film consistently compared negatively to that Patty Jenkins gem. The reviews were mixed-negative, even if that dumb Rotten Tomatoes gambit created a false sense of conspiracy and forthcoming critical annihilation. There will be plenty of time to go into this over the next few days (switching out Snyder for Whedon may well have pissed off the loyalists and added tens-of-millions of dollars to the budget for little additional value), but for now, let’s just run the numbers.
If Justice League runs like those Twilight sequels (which are also arguably “fan only” affairs), then we’re looking at a $192 million domestic total (which means it will have likely sold fewer tickets than the 2D Get Out). But if it plays at least like Man of Steel or Harry Potter 7.1, then it’s a $217-$225m domestic cume, or below Logan and Fate of the Furious. The hope is that the Ben Affleck/Gal Gadot/Henry Cavill/Jason Moma/Ray Fisher/Ezra Miller actioner will at least leg it like a Hunger Games movie to the tune of to $256-$267m domestic. Fingers crossed…
To be fair, it is entirely possible that the film will play well overseas (although $281 million isn’t a huge global bow for a movie like this, especially if it doesn’t leg it out). Speaking of which, it may leg it like Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them. That J.K. Rowling prequel earned $234 million domestic from a $74.4m debut (a multiplier which would put Justice League just under $300m) and then $814m worldwide. Justice League was never going to play like The Avengers, and I would argue making it into a copy of The Avengers may have been a crucial mistake in a world where The Avengers is available on Blu Ray or VOD. But for now, Justice League may well become the biggest-grossing “bomb” of all time.
The Super Friends saved the world, but Justice League couldn’t quite save the DCU. I’ve said for years that WB didn’t need a full-fledged DC cinematic universe. After this weekend, they may look at Kong: Skull Island, Dunkirk and It well realize that Batman and Wonder Woman are enough.
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It’s funny you say that.... I just finished reading an article that says they were disappointed in China....
Yep thanks for that...
No worries.... like I said... it’s funny you posted that as I had just read that article....
I was looking at the results in Boxofficemojo they still haven't released any stats for the Chinese market.
I said it before Shiz that the problem with WB is that everytime they make Superman film it is always compared to the Richard Donner films Superman 1 and 2.
I think they need a Kevin Feige equivalent... a person to keep an eye on the big picture...
They have their own Kevin Feige in Geoff Johns. Problem is he was brought in after the series was started to try and correct the course. Kevin has been the master architect from the very beginning
I think an underrated thing Feige does is he takes risks and lets directors like Taika and James Gunn helm these big projects.
And, honestly, I’m glad it worked out that way. Yes, the dark world is easily the worst MCU movie to date, but it means they could take a big risk with the third one by hiring someone like Taika, and as we all know the risk was definitely worth it.
