REVIEW: Wonder Woman Can't Save Dull "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice"

[Osiris-Rex]

Star Trek Nemesis did $67 million at the box office on a $60 million budget. The movie did the lowest of the Star Trek franchise and pretty much scrapped plans of a 5th and final TNG film. So again name recognition is nice , it doesn't translate to box office success as the final TNG film shows us. (I liked it better than Insurrection....damn did that suck)

But you are comparing a movie in which the franchise was petering out with a movie that was supposed to launch the franchise. A better comparison would be how well Star Trek: The Movie or Star Trek: Generations did, based on the fact that they were based on popular TV shows and thus had name recognition.
ST:TM $35 m budget, $139 m WW
ST:G $38 m budget, $120 m WW

[brettc1]

I don't disagree, as odd as that may sound. $850 is mixed somewhere between Avengers-level potential and the lesser Marvel movies.

I do wonder how good of a sample something like IMDB is of the general public. I don't know anyone personally that bothers to rate movies on most of these types of sites. And we all know that upset fans are more likely to express their views, so that would distort results.

Still, if 17.8% felt it was below average or worse, that means 80%+ thought it was above that, right? And if Snyder and WB can live up to their comment that the JL movie will be a bit less dark than BvS, maybe third time's the charm?

True. It has 24% rating of 10 but that has been falling consistently for the last month. It seemed to have a lot of 10s on its first day.

I've been tracking the pattern of voting since then and over the last 100k votes the most popular numbers have been 6s and 7s. What less good is while the 9s and 10s have dropped a lot the 1, 2, and 3 scores remain prett consistent.

All in all, the movie is rating 7.2. But if you only counted the most recent 150k votes it would tracking at more like 6.5

[People Of The Earth]

You are all over the place. Look Batman begins made a modest profit. Despite him being batman. He had alot to overcome from the mess of batman and robin. It wasnt some for sure box office success. Nemisis bombed despite having Trek next to it. It didnt matter if it was iconic or not. James bond has had ups and downs in its career despite his iconic nature. He is probably the most iconic person in movies. His last couple of movies did really well. But he had alot of movies that didnt do well. This whole premise is stupid. This whole idea that hero a should make more than hero b cause he is more iconic than hero b. Marvel heros have been around for 60 plus years some of them like cap longer. But the only ones you can admit are icons are spiderman. Yep thats it. All the other ones are b listers forever. Come on dude.

You keep ignoring the quality of said movies whenever you make that point, and it’s not the first time.
Again, fame/popularity/brand alone don’t make a movie’ success. But they’re definitely good kickstarters.
What will ultimately makes the movies’ successes are their quality. Which is exactly what happened for these movies you cited.

[kmeyers]

You keep ignoring the quality of said movies whenever you make that point, and it’s not the first time.
Again, fame/popularity/brand alone don’t make a movie’ success. But they’re definitely good kickstarters.
What will ultimately makes the movies’ successes are their quality. Which is exactly what happened for these movies you cited.

Exactly my point.

Take the exact story, plot, production and budget of BvS and change the names of the characters and movie title, it makes a fraction of what BvS made if it's lucky.

[CliffHanger2]

And why do you think that happened? Can anyone pretend BatClooney's movies were "quality" movies ? Can anyone pretend Returns was a good Superman movie ? Or even a good comicbook movie ?
At the end of the day, popularity, or fame, is giving a much better head start to any such project, than the contrary.
But it's not what makes a movie "good". At all. Quality is.

And honestly, this money obsession needs to stop, that's exactly the point I'm trying to convey here: making money doesn't make a movie "good", just makes it profitable.
Audiences don't care about whether or not a movie is profitable, they care about whether or not it's "good".
You keep saying those numbers as if they translate into "this movie was good".
It doesn't work like that.
Studios care only about money, but they are not crazy either: they know it's easier to make money with a movie that is good, positively received, than the other way around.
Can you say this about BvS tbh ? I know I can't.

Positively received by who? Critics or ga? Cause in general a movie making that much money in a month has been positively received. There's a definite disconnect between critics, online gripes and what people are actually doing. I keep bringing up the number because people were saying earlier in the month the movie had no chance at a billion dollars because of bad word of mouth and simple math. Those ppl were obviously wrong. And yes I thought the movie was good, so I saw it a 3 of times as have many others, hence the movies gross.

[CliffHanger2]

Thank you. This whole well they are famous so it should do better is silly. Hunger Games was more famous than american sniper and was just coming off a 450 million dollar movie. American Sniper beat the next hunger games at the box office. No one knew what Avatar was and it brought in more money than any comic book movie with famous comic book characters ever. Deadpool wasnt famous and he beat the last two spiderman movies at the box office and no one is gonna tell me spidey isnt more famous.

Yeah fame can actually hurt cause ppl are like "been there done that" they always are looking for something new especially younger audiences.

[kmeyers]

Yeah fame can actually hurt cause ppl are like "been there done that" they always are looking for something new especially younger audiences.

If that were true they wouldn't keep doing reboots and remakes of old successful movies or make any sequels.

[Liven]

Robin was the result of editorial meddling. Should we scrap him/her?

If you can show me where I posted that all editorial meddling is wrong and should be undone, I'll answer this question.

[CliffHanger2]

Yup. I hate when people bring up x character is more popular than y character. At one time the Spirit was the most popular character in comics. Now pretty much no one knows who he is. The whole well Batman or superman is more popular than Iron man argument is stupid. Iron man and the x men are in theory more popular than deadpool with the general public. But Deadpool made more money than the first two iron man movies or any x man movie. So I dont know why people keep saying this crap.

And just to edit that. If anyone can argue with me that Wolverine is not more iconic than deadpool to the general public have at it. Wolverines last movie did less than half of what Deadpools movie did domestic. So quit using this silly argument.

Pretty much this, after Deadpool the icon argument has no basis in reality.

[kmeyers]

Pretty much this, after Deadpool the icon argument has no basis in reality.

No one is saying that there can't be exceptions.

[CliffHanger2]

If that were true they wouldn't keep doing reboots and remakes of old successful movies or make any sequels.

Heheh yeah and how well do those reboots do? People in general are usually apathetic or hate them. Sequels are different but even then a series like Starwars is always shuffling in new main characters to stay fresh.

[CliffHanger2]

No one is saying that there can't be exceptions.

Yeah there's always exceptions but how many examples do people have to post of movies coming out of nowhere and blowing away established brands? Not that the new product was so much better, but being new to people obviously gave it an edge.

[Calighoula]

Only if her movie sucks a much as Man of Steel.

MoS sucks? I've no idea why I enjoy it so much more than IM2, IM3, both Thor movies, Ant-Man and AoU. Or any of the X-movies minus First Class. Hmm.

Also, TDKR, while a fully enjoyable film, is also the most flawed of Nolan's Batman movies. There are quite a few things I'd have changed, but Nolan was hell-bent on making sure it was a closed book. We've moved on.

I remember when, like a month ago in this forum, i got jumped on by a couple of DC fans for saying that Civil War and X-men: Apocalypse would make more money than Batman vs Superman. It's funny how now that those two posters have made an 180 degrees turn on their opinions.

Around the same time, I posted a link to an article which explains (with numbers, not rhetoric) how X-Men: Days of Future Past failed to profit at the box office. It didn't even hit 750 million after being in theaters for over three months. BvS has passed 850M. So, while you like the X-franchise, I'd be wary of pushing in my chips and betting Apocalypse will outgross BvS. I don't know what the film's final production and marketing numbers are, but they can't be less than its predecessor's.

[AcesX1X]

Exactly my point.

Take the exact story, plot, production and budget of BvS and change the names of the characters and movie title, it makes a fraction of what BvS made if it's lucky.

by last count, it made 200mil less actually.

solo hero sequel = check
setting up larger extended universe = check
conflicted lead hero = check
female love interest = check
friend/antagonist/super-hero team up = check
female hero intro = check
insane genius villain = check
overpowered physical threat = check

[Username taken]

Brand recognition isn't everything but to an extent it does count.

With the exception of Superman 3 and 4, all the Superman movies have been successful, even the ones with mixed reception. Same with Batman, none of the Batman movies have been box office flops.Even Batman and Robin (as maligned as it was) was successful at the box office. Same with Spider-man, even though the Amazing Spider-man series received a mixed reception those movies still made money. Batman and Superman have had decades of exposure (more than any other character from that era) and in that regard Snyder did have a point that those characters are somewhat above most superhero movies. I mean, the X-men movies as critically acclaimed as they are can't make as much money as the average Batman or Superman movie.

Less popular characters don't generally have that luxury. We just recently saw how badly F4 performed critically and financially. However, that doesn't prevent new and critically acclaimed movies exceeding expectations, Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Man and Deadpool easily fall into that category but those are outliers.