It's not apples to oranges indeed. Don't forget, not only has covid changed things, not only did Man of Steel cost more to make, but The Batman wasn't in theaters as long because they wanted to put it up on their streaming service and they let everyone know that - that wasn't a factor with Man of Steel. Another consideration, after Nolan's Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises, and Marvel's Avengers, WB just assumed that superhero movies would make a billion dollars, and were disappointed when Superman couldn't crack that. After all the DCEU has disappointed, WB no longer assumes that anything below a billion is an automatic failure. Never mind the fact that when Man of Steel came out DC was in a stronger position after Nolan. Now they're coming off their divisive DCEU stuff, their brand has been tarnished. Calling The Batman's $700+ million not good is to ignore how different things have become. The MCU can crank out billion dollar movies, but largely WB/DC just hasn't, and they've stopped assuming that they will. The Batman was a success. Maybe not a runaway success, but a good success nonetheless, and that's evident in how a sequel has been greenlit and they're still going through with the spin off streaming series. If it had been a disappointment WB would be panicking as they always do.
And yet most of the time we have seen it before. Endgame and the multiverse not withstanding.
Except they weren't. Dark, grounded, and gritty? Sure. I get that. But no, the trailers didn't sell this as a Dark Knight retread, but as Seven by way of Gotham. It was obvious that this would be different from previous movies despite still being in the grounded gritty mold. I think that some people were just so "been there seen that" on the dark and gritty thing they just couldn't see through to the unique things that this film was promising.Whereas the trailers for The Batman and even the synopsis made it seem like the same old Batman story (which thankfully it wasn't).
And I think that they did. I just don't think that people realised it because it wasn't a pivot to more colorful and fantastic elements. But that doesn't mean it was marketed the same as Nolan's films.DC has to learn better marketing with the Batman franchise. The goal isn't to make every film fill like the same thing. It's to show what's different about this one.
No. Doctor Strange is part of the MCU, it came off of the wildly successful Spider-Man No Way Home. The Batman is from the very damaged DC brand, is the first film in a reboot (those traditionally start off weak), is coming off DC's divisive universe even if it's not a part of it, is 3 hours long, is a slow burn, and was hugely telegraphed as coming out on HBO Max for cheap a month after - and let's not pretend like that isn't a factor. Disney isn't hollering that Doctor Strange will be available on Disney+ four weeks after the movie's premier. Let's not compare the two as if there's no difference. There are a lot of differences that factored in here, and when you factor those in, from it not being the MCU, DC's brand problem, fewer showings just because it's a longer film, being yet another reboot, and the huge push to streaming which you better believe had an effect, it did well. It was a success all things considered. And it's in a strong position for an even more successful sequel.764 million with rave reviews and absolutely no competition for a whole month (during spring break) is underwhelming, specially when Doctor Strange is gonna blow right past it with much more divisive reviews just one month later