Warner Bros.’ highly anticipated comics adaptationJustice Leaguefinally hit theaters this past weekend, and there’s no way around it:the film is a box office disappointment. The superhero team-up pulled in $94 million on opening weekend (adjusted down today from yesterday’s estimates of $96 million), the lowest bow yet for a DCEU film and well below expectations (it was pegged at $110 million last week). But you may be asking, how is almost $100 million a disappointment? It only made $7 million less thanWonder Woman, and that movie is considered a smashing success. Won’t it have legs? And what does this mean going forward? How did this happen? Well, it’s complicated. Let’s break it down.
First, here’s the opening weekend box office of every DCEU movie thus far:
Man of Steel- $103 million
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice- $166 million
Suicide Squad- $135 million
Wonder Woman- $106 million
Justice League- $94 million
One of the primary reasonsJustice Leagueis considered a disappointment is simply because it’s a film teaming upallthe major DC superheroes, and yet it opened to less than the previous standalone movies. That’s antithetical to what Warner Bros. was hoping withJustice League, and certainly in stark contrast toThe Avengers’ record-setting $207 million opening weekend in the wake of four previous standalone Marvel movies. The idea here was forJustice Leagueto be the biggest of the bunch, because theoretically you bring in the fans of Wonder Woman, Batman, and Superman as well as those curious to see what Aquaman, Flash, and Cyborg are up to. Clearly that didn’t happen.
The other main reasonJustice League’s box office is disappointing is math. $94 million may seem like a lot of money, but not in relation to Warner Bros.’ investment in the film. The movie’s production budget alone is said to be north of $300 million, and that’s not even including marketing costs, which add roughly anther $150 million on top of that. So, roughly,Justice Leaguewould need to make around $450 million simply to hit the break-even mark (it’s currently at $281 million worldwide).Justice Leaguewas clearly an expensive movie to begin with, but the costs ballooned even further when significant reshoots took place over the summer, said to total around $25 million extra.
So ifLady Bird, a movie with a budget of $10 million, scored a $94 million opening weekend that would be tremendous. But when a major superhero blockbuster sequel with a pricetag in the hundreds of millions of dollars opensunder$100 million, that’s cause for concern. That’s part of the reason why Marvel Studios aims to keep the budgets of its films relatively in check.Thor: Ragnarok’s reported production budget was around $180 million, which is stilla lotof money, but the margin for error is a bit bigger given that the break-even point is lower. For a more 1:1, the gross production budget ofThe Avengers—a comparable film given its large ensemble cast—was $220 million, but that movie scored over $200 million opening weekend and went on to hit over $1.5 billion worldwide. The investment was hefty, but so was the return.
Some are saying it’s unfair to callJustice Leaguea disappointment at this early stage because the film could have legs in the weeks to come, just likeWonder Woman. And yes, that’s possible, but there are a few factors that point to a lack of longevity at the box office here. For one, we’re about to hit a very crowded corridor of new releases, fromCocotoStar Wars: The Last Jedi. Also,Wonder Womanenjoyed wildly positive reviews that convinced people to give it a shot in the ensuing weeks who may not have shown up opening weekend. The film kept going and going and going until it hit $821 million worldwide.Wonder Womanalso enjoyed positive word-of-mouth, as evidenced by an A CinemaScore.
A quick digression: CinemaScore is a weird thing, and it’s important not to put too much stake in it. It works like this: on opening weekend, CinemaScore polls audiences leaving the theater on Friday night, asking them how much they enjoyed the movie they just saw. The polling sample isonlythose seeing the movie on opening night, so it’s less a general audience score and more an indication of how well the film played with those it directly targeted in marketing. If the idea of marketing is to sell a movie and convince people to see it ASAP, CinemaScore tells you what those people who were swayed by the marketing thought of the film. Most CinemaScores are in the A and B range, but it’s pretty heavily weighted—while a B+ may seem like a good grade, it’s somewhat low considering the folks grading it jetted out to the theater to see this movie the first chance they got.
SoWonder Woman’s A CinemaScore gave an indication the film might have strong legs, whileJustice League’s B+ CinemaScore indicates theremaybe a chance that word-of-mouth isn’t as strong. For reference,Batman v Superman’s CinemaScore was a B,Suicide Squadwas a B+, andMan of Steelwas an A-. By contrast, the only Marvel Studios movie thus far to receive a CinemaScore below an A- isThorwith a B+—but again, that’s more an indication of how well those films matched their marketing than how “good” the movies are.
But back to the box office. How didJustice Leagueopen so low? Well a number of factors were likely at work. First, there was already apprehension about the DC Extended Universe. Reviews forMan of Steelwere mixed,Batman v SupermanandSuicide Squadboth scored mostly negative reviews, andWonder Womanis the outlier with a 92% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The track record, at least from a critical standpoint, was spotty at best, so some audience members may have been waiting for a critical consensus to see ifJustice Leaguewas worth their time and money. As it turns out, reviews for the superhero team-up were once again mixed-negative, so that may have deterred some folks from seeking the film out.
There certainly appears to be a strong fan contingent who enjoyed the film, so it’s possible the film doesn’t have as near a steep drop-off in box office in Week 2 or Week 3 asBatman v SupermanandSuicide Squad, but the opening weekend was definitely something of a bust.
There’s also the fact that, unlike Marvel Studios which built in audience attachment to the characters inThe Avengerswith standalone films preceding the superhero team-up,Justice Leagueasks audiences to trust that Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg are worth seeing on the big screen. Given that he’s wholly absent from the trailers, some general audience members may not even have known that Superman was in this movie, so that leaves you withGal Gadot’s Wonder Woman andBen Affleck’s Batman as the only market-tested characters in the film—and depending on how you felt aboutBatman v Superman, you may have decided to just sit this one out and wait forWonder Woman 2.
This was always Warner Bros.’ biggest gamble from the start—somewhat reverse-engineering its own superhero team by starting with the group movie and then doing the solo movies later. It’s possible that, with the spotty track record in mind and intensely strong negative reaction toBatman v Superman, it was hard for audiences to trust that they’d have a good time with new characters inJustice League.
So does this spell doom for the DCEU? Not exactly. Warner Bros. will no doubt be watching the second weekend ofJustice League’s release to see if the more positive word-of-mouth from fans results in more business. But there will almost certainly be a strong pivot away fromZack Snyder’s original vision for the DCEU given thatPatty Jenkins’ starkly heroic and joyfulWonder Womanis the franchise’s only bona fide smashing success all around at this point in time.
By all accounts WB has been in something of a holding pattern when it comes tofuture DC movies, no doubt waiting to see what happens withJustice League.Shazam!moves into production early next year with a sitcom writer penning the screenplay andZachary Leviin the lead role, which is about as far fromBatman v Supermanas you can get, so clearly changes are being made. What happens now in terms of what kinds of films get the greenlight and when we might seeJustice League 2is still a very big question mark, though we’ll know more in the weeks to come. What we do know is that the opening weekend forJustice Leagueis 100% a disappointment.
