Justice league box office: What went wrong

[Sighphi]

If you honestly think that tons of people were flocking to the theaters to see IT because of Stephen King's novel, then I have a bridge to sell you. The movie made a ton of money because a shitload of people in their late 20's/30's grew up with the made for TV adaptation.

King is like the one writers, if not the top writer, who has had the most adaptions made from his work.

The idea that this is simply fans of a TV show is completely nuts.

The Warner Bros execs were reportedly pissed that BvS didn't break $1 billion worldwide at the box office. What do you think their reaction is going to be when their grandaddy team-up flick could end up grossing approximately half of that? Not too cheerful, I assure you.

So you dont know anything, then?

Looking at the data it looks like JL opened in about 200 theaters less than BvS, 191 to be exact. I think that shows that this movie would have less of an intake.

JL opened in 114 less theaters than WW. So coming in 7 million short of WW makes sense.

There's a lot factors to think about when it comes to movie that never enter conversations like this.

People seem to think that this is an equal race for everyone when it's not.

I do. having managed a movie theater I know very well. Suffice it to say there's a reason for the price of popcorn in a movie theater.

Yes, WB will be disappointed.

When? How long ago?

[jbmasta]

Will women be Ok with what little has been done with WW in JL and the butt shots because I want her second movie to do well. Out with Affleck I say. Better for him und better for Batman. Excited for Matt Reeves and the SS2 director.

They get Aquaman and Superman fanservice. Nearly got Batman fan disservice with all his bruising after the fight under the island.

[Captain M]

It wasn't a good movie. People aren't nearly as interested in DCEU as they are with MCU.

The action was little and meh, just like all other DC movies.

[rpmaluki]

LOTS of reasons...

1) Bad reviews.

2) Zack Snyder.

3) WB Interference.

4) Bad release date.

5) Not a very memorable movie.

I'd like to add...

6) Two different directors with very distinct styles that cancel each other out.

[jbmasta]

I'd like to add...

6) Two different directors with very distinct styles that cancel each other out.

Yes. The humour felt forced and tonally jarring in places, characters quipping at inapppropriate times. Sometimes the joke landed, like Aquaman not realising he was touching Wonder Woman's lasso, but other times it felt like the pudding was being over-egged, such as some of Flash's moments.

[CliffHanger2]

It wasn't a good movie. People aren't nearly as interested in DCEU as they are with MCU.

The action was little and meh, just like all other DC movies.

I'd disagree with the action being little and meh there was a lot of big action scenes in this movie.

[CliffHanger2]

I will always ask how could Suicide Squad, a film that rated 26% rotten, beat the better rated Justice League, that stars the darling of the DCEU(Wonder Woman), with the team that quite a few people have heard of? As well as having Batman and Superman? Although I disliked BVS there still should have been enough interest to propel this movie easily over the 100M this weekend.

I don't blame the reviews because it didn't seem to hurt SS.

SS is the newer,hipper team that's why. Name recognition isn't a big factor in the super hero genre.

[Captain M]

I'd disagree with the action being little and meh there was a lot of big action scenes in this movie.

Not even half of what Age of Ultron had.

[CliffHanger2]

Not even half of what Age of Ultron had.

Nah maaan... this had more action than AOU.

[XPac]

I can certainly see where when people claim "marvel bias" that is seems like they are just making excuses and while I think that the DCEU is certainly behind marvel right now, there does seem to be a fair amount of critics who are incapable of watching a DC movie without comparing it to marvel. While I do think that ultimately critics base their reviews on whether they thought the movie was good or not with DCEU films there seems to be an almost gleeful delight from reviewers when they find things to complain about in DC films. Reviewers tend to exaggerate complaints with DC films, BVS and Suicide Squad had their problems but reviews made it seem like they were some of the worst films ever made and had no good elements. While I agree with most people that marvel has mostly made great films, critics seem to ignore issues that occur in marvel films but blast dc for the same issues. For example, both Civil War and BVS had huge plot holes with how overly complicated the villains plan was in those movies, BVS got blasted for it in almost every review while almost nothing was said about it in Civil war. Both marvel and DC films have Villain issues, yet with DC critics never stop complaining about this issue and trash the film in the review because of it, where as with marvel it gets mentioned but never is used as a reason the whole movie gets trashed. Critics seem to be overly polite in any criticism of marvel and seem to exaggerate any issue in a DC film to ridiculous lengths. In the end you can pretty much make any movie bad if you sit down intent on looking for flaws,it kinda seems like a lot of critics go into DC movies wanting to dislike the films and go into marvel movies wanting to like them. Critics seem to comb through DC films looking for something to dislike, if there is a plot hole in the movie the whole review is affected by it where as with marvel if a plot hole happens, critics just let it go. I don't know if there is an actual bias but I feel like if Justice League was the same exact movie but was released by marvel it would have gotten good reviews. Conversely if DC released a movie like thor the dark world or Iron Man 3 instead of it getting lower reviews but still getting praised it would have been absolutely trashed by critics.

I'm not sure about the whole DC bias thing.

Wonder Woman was almost universally praised and that was DC.

[Soubhagya]

I'm not sure about the whole DC bias thing.

Wonder Woman was almost universally praised and that was DC.

I was also thinking that there is a bias after watching the film. I totally enjoyed it! But after mulling this over i can see that there is no bias. What works for someone may not work for someone else. And what is a problem for someone may not be so for another person. I can see the cgi moustache. It did not bother me the least. But for someone else it would bother them a lot. A 300 million dollar film with cgi like this? I can see the problems which critics are having. But those problems did not bother me the least. The good far outweighed the bad for me. It did not affect my viewing experience. But for critics it was affected.

It is not all bad though. 40% RT means four out of ten critics liked it. Reviews were not as brutal as they were for BvS or SS.

[hammergiant]

Here is what went wrong: People do not enjoy Zack Snyder’s vision for these heroes.

I’ve been reading comics since I was old enough to read. DC is my go to. No offense to those of you who liked them, but I hated MoS and BvS (and SS for that matter). It seemed to me that Snyder did not understand Superman and the character he put up on the screen was a bad parody. I’m fine with creators putting their own twist on things, but usually sticking to the core of a character is good. Those doubts were reinforced when I got my first look at Flash. The one put up on screen has nothing in common with any other version of Barry Allen.

Snyder needs to go if the DC movie universe is going to continue to move forward. Patty Jenkins and Wonder Woman let us see the light. I’m sure the suits at WB also deserve a lot of blame. They meddle far too much, but at this point, Snyder is poison fruit.

[Factor]

Here is what went wrong: People do not enjoy Zack Snyder’s vision for these heroes.

I’ve been reading comics since I was old enough to read. DC is my go to. No offense to those of you who liked them, but I hated MoS and BvS (and SS for that matter). It seemed to me that Snyder did not understand Superman and the character he put up on the screen was a bad parody. I’m fine with creators putting their own twist on things, but usually sticking to the core of a character is good. Those doubts were reinforced when I got my first look at Flash. The one put up on screen has nothing in common with any other version of Barry Allen.

Snyder needs to go if the DC movie universe is going to continue to move forward. Patty Jenkins and Wonder Woman let us see the light. I’m sure the suits at WB also deserve a lot of blame. They meddle far too much, but at this point, Snyder is poison fruit.

Agreed. Barry Allen's characterization was so terrible. It was a completely different character, kind of like Mantis in GoTG, with the exception that Mantis actually managed to be funny.
They did get New 52 Cyborg right, but that's the one they should have tweaked a bit LOL.
I can't believe people actually like Momoa's Aquaman. They wanted a bad-ass warrior type? Maybe get Hawkman or something. He was nothing like Arthur Curry at all.

To me it was very clear they tweaked all the characters to fit some very basic character archetypes that really do not fit their actual characterization. So Barry became the annoying anti-social comic relief, Aquaman was the monosyllabic warrior and so on.

[AJBopp]

When? How long ago?

I did it for about 10 years ending a couple of years ago.

[AJBopp]

I can certainly see where when people claim "marvel bias" that is seems like they are just making excuses and while I think that the DCEU is certainly behind marvel right now, there does seem to be a fair amount of critics who are incapable of watching a DC movie without comparing it to marvel.

Part of the job of a reviewer is to evaluate the quality of the movie based on others of the genre. So you see lots of kids shows compared to Pixar, you still see romantic comedies compared to Pretty Woman, etc. Right now Marvel is the very definition of the superhero genre, and so superhero movies are going to find themselves compared to Marvel a lot.particularly a film like Justice League, for which the only real analogy is Avengers.

Wonder Woman was also compared to Marvel. In that case, the comparison was "this was done better or at least as well as Marvel movies, but it has it's own distinctiveness, so it's not like a Marvel movie."