To take a page from not-dead Superman, it’s not a doomsday yet, but it is a bizarro world out there this weekend and studio suits are running around scrambling, probably worried about their jobs. Despite two creative shifts with five years, Zack Snyder and then Geoff Johns, something’s not working at the DC Comics Extended Universe and a reckoning is probably coming post “Justice League.”
In any normal superverse, your version of the “Avengers” movie is the apex of your strategic superhero masterplan; the ne plus ultra mothership, the monolith of the sculpture you’ve been building towards all these years. It should be a monster both in size, scope and commensurately with its performance at the box office. In an alternate universe, “Justice League” is just absolutely crushing it. But it’s become opposite day for Warner Bros. and their struggling DCEU franchise and they’ve taken another narrative hit that could turn into a lasting black eye.
LISTEN: Does ‘Justice League’ Live Up To Its Mighty Gallery Of Heroes? [Podcast]
Update: Box office actuals are in and “Justice League” made $94 million, that’s less than “Captain America: Winter Soldier” and the first “Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume.”
“Justice League” has disappointed at home, opening to $96 million this weekend in North America, and taken on its own, without context, that’s a huge number. But the cold reality is, “Justice League,” WB’s long-awaited superhero team-up has just earned the dubious distinction of producing the lowest-grossing opening of any of the five DCEU films, “Batman V. Superman,” “Suicide Squad,” “Wonder Woman,” and yep, even the mildly received “Man Of Steel” in 2013 which flew to $116 million that year. “The Avengers” debuted with a staggering $207 million in 2012, the third highest opening of all time. “Justice League” isn’t even close and it’s the second lowest grossing superhero movie opening of the year behind “Logan,” which to be fair, was R-Rated and more like a brooding Western than traditional super hero movie.
There’s no way to spin this: there is no scenario in the world where this should occur. Imagine after five films, your interconnected franchise universe actually regresses and “The Avengers,” can’t outperform “Iron Man.” Trust me, the alarm bells have been set over at Warner Bros. and the post-mortems will be long, fierce and grueling. Tweaked and seemingly focus-grouped to death, shot in a Frankenstein-ed form, seemingly trying to please everyone and thus satisfying few, “Justice League” was met with mixed to mediocre reviews this past week. The movie currently stands at a weak 40% on Rotten Tomatoes and went into the box office weekend with a shadow over its head that it could not get out from under (read our review here).
READ MORE: Rumor: DC Considering Pivot To Wonder Woman Universe Of Movies
You don’t need too look far to find damaging context. The utterly reviled “Batman Vs. Superman” (Rotten Tomatoes score of 27%) opened to a massive $166 million in 2016, the 9th highest opening weekend gross of all time domestically. But “Justice League,” better reviewed and received still fell a whopping 44% from that figure. This isn’t superhero fatigue, “Wonder Woman” proved this summer audiences will still warmly receive a good super hero movie, this is something much bigger, much more fundamentally malignant and execs are deeply worried right now. For comparison, the “Justice League debut will land somewhere in the top 50 of all-time box office openings (update: 56th ever). Nine Eleven Marvel movies have opened to bigger numbers than “Justice League,” including 2008’s “Iron Man,” which sparked off this original superhero craze in the first place. That’s a staggering thought: a decade later of modern superhero movies and the huge team-up flick cannot open bigger than the modern genre’s opening salvo.
Just two weeks ago, a C-list Marvel character, Thor, had his third movie, ‘Ragnarok,’ open to $122 million. Again, what sorcery is this when a comedian with a quirky superhero movie can fully outgun the first movie to ever house Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Cyborg and The Flash under one roof? Costing north of $300 million, not including promotion and advertising—which cost around $150 million for the aforementioned ‘BVS’—“Justice League” is a massively costly effort and will likely need to hit around a very conservative $700 million just to break even ($750 was the magic number for ‘BVS’ so it’s at least that figure.
Globally, it’s a different story. In China, “Justice League” debuted to $51 million, the second highest opening weekend gross for a Warner Bros. movie after “Batman V. Superman.” That makes for a $185.5M international opening and nothing to sneeze at all, but 66% of the overall gross is from international markets and the tax on North America is going to hurt the overall worldwide tally when all is said and done. Inclusively, you have a major $281.5 million worldwide opening. Many will point to “Wonder Woman” as a comparison; the Gal Gadot-starring superhero film only opened to $223 million globally earlier this year. But it’s not apples to apples at all. “Wonder Woman” hadn’t debuted in all its markets in week one. “Justice League” has basically opened in every territory in the world save Japan. Even if it were flat comparison, and it’s not, again, just look at both ‘Avengers’ films; both launched to around $392 million in each of their weekend debuts.
Superhero movies of this gargantuan size are engineered to make $1 billion. Anything less is considered a failure and that’s exactly what happened to “Batman Vs. Superman” and will certainly repeat itself for “Justice League” if this trajectory holds (frankly, domestically, the nail is already in the coffin). Fans are already trying to spin the domestic problem on social media, how word of mouth and other magical fairy dust will solve the problem and everything will be fine. And or don’t worry, the rest of the world will save the money financially. Or DCEU is already looking at this a “sunk cost,” and it’s ok, future films will deliver. Yet, there’s no viable scenario in the world where your “Avengers” movie should deliver a penny less than your earlier films; in fact, they should only increase exponentially (“Avengers” earned more than double than “Iron Man”).
So, what went wrong or is going wrong at least in North America? Geez, everything, that’s another article unto itself, but weeks two and three and the drop-off for “Justice League” will be crucial. Right now, you’re looking at a film that could stall around $750 million; far, far off the $1 billion figure it’s likely never going to reach. Remember, Sony shitcanned “The Amazing Spider-Man” series after it failed to reach $1 billion and could only muster $750 million for episode two. It’s conceivable to see yet another sequence of events where the DCEU clean creative house yet again and or tries to bring on a new big gun to steer the ship (apparently that’s not going to be Joss Whedon, FYI).But the problem then becomes pandering to the audience and eternally chasing after what they think they audience wants rather than delivering a specific vision (which is exactly the problem with “Justice League”).
But starting over from scratch isn’t an option. Too much time and money has been invested and the studio at least has a viable character and lead in “Wonder Woman” (and you’ll see the WB lean harder into her). Oh, and you can probably guarantee that Ben Affleck has already served his two weeks notice and we’ll read about it down the road (if not in the very immediate future).
Look, “Justice League” hasn’t failed yet, but this disappointing opening does not bode well and there is ample cause to be worried if you’re one of its ardent fans. Its potential failure could go down as big cautionary tale and a case study of the dangers of chasing and trying to replicate the success of other studios by copying their methods. Clearly, chasing Marvel’s plan hasn’t worked.
Elsewhere at the box-office, “Thor Ragnarok” suffered a hit because of “Justice League,” as all superhero movies do when new competition hits, but the movie has still cracked the $700 million mark ($730 million) after only three weeks in theaters. ‘Ragnarok’s the ninth MCU film to pass $700M and the currently it’s the ninth highest grossing film of the year. At home ‘Ragnarok’ has made $247 million and can hit $300 presumably unless “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” just sucks up every one of the available blockbuster dollars after its mid December release. Out of left field, the big surprise was Julia Roberts’ “Wonder” with Jacob Tremblay and Owen Wilson. This is a film that some audiences barely know exists, but clearly, there’s a demographic that exists, “Wonder” opened to a fantastic $27.1 million. When was the last time a low-key heartwarming drama posted those kinds of numbers?
Sony’s animated “The Star” movie grossed $10 million and the A24 breakout indie “Lady Bird” has nearly hit the $5 million mark, but clearly the story was all about superhero movies this weekend. In limited release, Sony’s “Roman J. Israel, Esq.” had a strong showing. Starring Denzel Washington, the legal drama tallied $16,250 from four screens for an excellent $65,000 per screen average. That’s the fourth highest per screen average opening of 2017 after “The Big Sick.”
1. Justice League—$96,000,000
2. Wonder — $27,050,000
3. Thor: Ragnarok — $21,786,000 ($247,382,170)
4. Daddy’s Home 2 — $14,800,000 ($50,576,447)
5. Murder on the Orient Express —$13,800,000 ($51,728,362)
6. The Star — $10,000,000
7. Bad Moms Christmas — $6,890,000 ($50,912,155)
8. Lady Bird — $2,529,915 ($4,702,390)
9. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri — $1,115,000 ($21,038 $1,549,225)
10. Jigsaw — $1,070,000
