Other than Wonder Woman, every entry in Warner’s embattled DC franchise has been considered, at best, an under-performer. It gets worse because after 20 days in release, Justice League is trailing well behind all four of its DC under-performers.
On day 20, Man of Steel had already grossed $256 million; Batman vs. Superman, $301 million; Suicide Squad, $270 million; Wonder Woman, $289 million.
On day 20, Justice League sits at a measly $201 million.
Worldwide, the news is not much better. Thus far Justice League has managed to gross just $573 million.
With a budget reported to be as high as $300 million (add another $50 – $75 million for promotion), the movie math informs us that Justice League will need to gross somewhere around $750 million just to break even. As of now, that is unlikely.
That is not even the worst news… For context, Justice League was supposed to be DC’s Avengers, a recreation of the Marvel box office phenom where all of our heroes assemble to save the world. Well, Marvel’s Avengers might end up grossing more domestically ($623 million) than Justice League does worldwide — and worldwide Marvel’s Avengers grossed an incredible $1.5 billion. The sequel, Age of Ultron, did almost as well.
But the real news is here is that even outside the Marvel comparison, the DC franchise is failing, and failing hard — both creatively and at the box office.
Undoubtedly, although the entertainment media will never bring this up, other than just being a pretty lousy movie, Justice League was hampered by its connection to the never-ending Harveywood scandal, something star Ben Affleck, co-director Joss Whedon, and producer Brett Ratner have been caught up in.
Regardless, things are so bad for Warner Bros. and DC, a major shake-up is underway.
Losing his job is Jon Berg, the Warner executive in charge of DC’s movies. His replacement and an entire restructuring is expected to be completed by as soon as next month.
Variety also reports that director Zack Snyder (Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman, Justice League) might be out for good as a director, even if he stays on in some capacity as a producer.
The other big news is the apparent edging out of Ben Affleck as Batman. Although he is expected to portray the Dark Knight in the standalone Flash movie (no one asked for), director Matt Reeves is expected to find someone else for his standalone Batman movie.
In worse news, Warner Bros. is still delusional enough to believe Justice League whetted the public’s appetite for a standalone Flash chapter and the already-shot Aquaman chapter.
It did not.
DC’s only hope is to offer Christopher Nolan $500 million and total creative control in exchange for five years of his life to salvage this rolling disaster.
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