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

[Calighoula]

I've supposedly heard of a lot of people who didn't like Star Wars: The Force Awakens (I register a mild dislike), but it didn't stop it from being the highest grossing Star Wars film of all time. I've supposedly heard that everyone hated BvS, but I've heard a lot of enthusiastic people out there over the movie. We tend to forget that we live in a bubble on the internet where we interact with a lot of people with similar interests. It may come as a surprise to you, but there are people who like the Transformers movies. Studios are in the business of making money. Since by all indications the movie is a success for Warner, why wouldn't they put Zack Snyder back in the director's chair? Forbes projected a very healthy profit for WB. For every internet poster that talks about not going to Zack Snyder's movies, enough people are going to drive up the box office value. Ever wondered why Michael Bay can keep making Transformers movies? It's the same idea.

Correct. WB isn't concerned with the same 25 people on CBR or SHH or (insert forum here) who gripe endlessly about the film and pontificate where its so-called lack of profitability is concerned. In fact, all but one person I've spoken with "offline" said they loved the movie. The same goes for many of us, no doubt.

[Coin Biter]

It's a funny thing, but I don't recall this disdain for the opinion of critics when the Nolan Bat-trilogy obtained 94% on RT.

[Colossus1980]

It's a funny thing, but I don't recall this disdain for the opinion of critics when the Nolan Bat-trilogy obtained 94% on RT.

Pretty much. Everyone who criticizes BVS on the box office or film itself is obviously Anti DCEU and just a plain Marvel fanboy troll.

[The Celtic Batman]

Will Wonder Woman have the same budget as Captain America? 140M? Probably not. But even back then I don't recall too many people saying CA was a huge success but a modest one. People expect big numbers on these superhero movies because the budget is usually so big. How great is WW making 200M if it costs more than that to make? Or is the new criteria for success waiting for international box office? If that's the case Sony should have just kept the rights to Spider-Man since it still made more than the MOS.

I think WW movie should have a big enough budget to do the movie proper Justice. This movie is going to rock & hopefully be a watershed moment in the whole gender politics superhero shebang yo

[Calighoula]

Will Wonder Woman have the same budget as Captain America? 140M? Probably not. But even back then I don't recall too many people saying CA was a huge success but a modest one. People expect big numbers on these superhero movies because the budget is usually so big. How great is WW making 200M if it costs more than that to make? Or is the new criteria for success waiting for international box office? If that's the case Sony should have just kept the rights to Spider-Man since it still made more than the MOS.

I think Wonder Woman's budget is estimated to be below 200 million, but I could be wrong.

If you'd like to know why Sony did what they did, just click to expand the doc in the middle of this article:

http://deadline.com/2015/03/amazing-...14-1201389608/

[inisideguy]

Will Wonder Woman have the same budget as Captain America? 140M? Probably not. But even back then I don't recall too many people saying CA was a huge success but a modest one. People expect big numbers on these superhero movies because the budget is usually so big. How great is WW making 200M if it costs more than that to make? Or is the new criteria for success waiting for international box office? If that's the case Sony should have just kept the rights to Spider-Man since it still made more than the MOS.

First off this obsession with budgets is interesting. If this movie was not making money they would not be making a JL. Second what is the budget for civil war? I have noticed that all studios right now just say 250 million for every big movie. Thats the budget. Yea right. They are paying RDJ 30 million a movie and the budget is 250 million. I guess they just give the rest of the cast gift cards at taco bell. Sony bailed on spidey cause their spidey movies kept making less and less domestic. They saw no way out of the spiral. Honestly they saturated the market with 5 spideys in like 10 years. Its was to much. International box office has alot to do with the success or failure of movies. Honestly thats the future. Say the wonder woman movie cost 150 million to make. Say it makes 200 million domestic and 250 million international. People will come on these boards and say omg the most popular female comic book character only made 450 million dollars! OMG! I only see this with DC movies. The last star trek made less than the first star trek. Guess what another star trek is coming out. Now i watched that last star trek. It had to have a pretty big budget. I didnt see the bean counters come on boards and say hmmmm well the budget was this plus the marketing was this and the advertising was this and it only made this therefore it looks like its a failure they must fire JJ abrams and ban him from all movies in the future.

[kmeyers]

I can see it now.

Wonder Woman makes double its budget at the box office with room to spare.
Fans: Yay!
WB: Yay!
Critics: The movie FAILED!
Fans: What?! Why?
Critics: Wonder Woman is the most recognizable female superhero on the planet! The movie should have made MORE! It's a failure!

Except for the problem that most critics didn't even mention how much the movie made and criticized plot points and other legitimate problems with the actual movie that they didn't like.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

It's a funny thing, but I don't recall this disdain for the opinion of critics when the Nolan Bat-trilogy obtained 94% on RT.

Honestly , beyond Batman Begins and Ledger's performance....those films weren't good. The last one was an utter shit show (Dark Knight Rises). It stuns me the last one got 87% from RT.

[Coin Biter]

Honestly , beyond Batman Begins and Ledger's performance....those films weren't good. The last one was an utter shit show (Dark Knight Rises). It stuns me the last one got 87% from RT.

I tend to agree, but then I hold the probably perverse view that Nolan's career peaked with Memento

[Charlie Rock]

Unfortunately some people are taking the criticism of this movie way too far.

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/batman...itics-a140871P

How one can send death threats over a movie is beyond me.

And two steps backwards for fellow comic book fans.
This isn't helping anything. If they think it'll stop critics it actually makes those critics word all the stronger.
"Those critics defied death threats to honestly review such-n-such."
"The critics that liked it most be like those fanatics that threatened the other critics."
This is why I still don't tell people I like comic books. Pro wrestling fans have better reputations for civility.

[Charlie Rock]

pfffttt..really? Now who's getting emotional?lol.

That was simply my outright dismissal of your incorrect claims. (Which you have yet to substantiate, I notice)
Maybe the emoticon would be more approbo

[brettc1]

Honestly , beyond Batman Begins and Ledger's performance....those films weren't good. The last one was an utter shit show (Dark Knight Rises). It stuns me the last one got 87% from RT.

I have to agree about DKR. After 90 minutes I was looking at my watch and calculating how much time was left to go before it was over.

[Charlie Rock]

A number of people are proclaiming how Superman , Batman and Wonder Woman are huge iconic characters and should have a guaranteed box office of $1 billion. But if we examine this the only real $$$ character has been Batman the last 30+ years.

Batman does make more but Superman sells about 2-300mm in retail merchandise a year. That's Super-logo underoos to lunch pails and etc.
Your pretty accurate with your assessment of their respective movies but I think you didn't consider overall merchandising.

[Awonder]

Why are people comparing BvS to the solo Marvel movies? Thats not a straight forward comparison at all.

This was the DCEU big first time team up movie and it was basically an Avengers 0.5. Marvel's first full on team up movie was the Avengers. Most of Marvel's characters were C to D-listers at best even Hollywood knows this (Sony's boss stated this explicitly in the leaked e-mails and Snyder himself said that Batman and Superman were above the recent superhero movie craze). No one expects a Thor or Captain America movie to make as much as a Batman movie and certainly not as much as a Batman and Superman team-up movie, the same way no one will expect Aquaman to make as much as Civil War.

It all boils down to expectations, the Amazing Spider-man series and the character is being moved into the MCU even though the movies made MUCH MORE than most MCU movies. Spider-man (and Batman and Superman) is an A-list character the movies are supposed to be making a whole lot more than Thor and Captain America however a Spider-man movie shouldn't be grossing less than $300m domestic considering how popular he is and how the Raimi movies performed (which is staggering consider in the International market hasn't exploded the way it has now and those movies weren't in 3D or IMAX).

Batman and Superman are pop culture icons that have received dozens of film adaptations between them. Most of the first MCU (with the exception of Hulk) had never even had movies released in theaters (the old Captain America movie never received a cinema release). Comparing BvS to much smaller projects in scale and budget doesn't really reveal much. BvS isn't a flop but most people on this board expected it to gross a lot more than it did. WB probably felt so too. The controversy around BvS isn't so much it's box office as much as it's extremely poor critical reception and unusually large box office drops.

I'm comparing movies to movies. Theaters, afaik, didn't give out any discount prices because Ant-Man wasn't an A-list character or because the movie didn't contain all the Avengers. If BvS can't be compared to Marvel solo movies because it's Avengers 0.5, then it can't really be compared to the full Avengers 1.0 or 2.0 either.

Perhaps BvS could have made more money and generated more excitement; there's no way to know for sure because it didn't happen. What did happen is it generated more money than 3/4 of Marvel's movies. Not as great as Avengers, but really not all that bad either. Perhaps that's somewhat fitting for a 0.5 movie to be somewhere in the middle?

It isn't the total box office that counts, it is the profitability. Yes, those 9 films were less than BvS, but since most of their budgets for those were also smaller, they were likely more profitable. In addition, Marvel has an end game, so if one film is less profitable, they have others that will potentially be more profitable.

BvS as a start to Warners End Game scenario may not be the starting point they were hoping for.

Which "counts" - box office or profitability - largely depends on what you are talking about. I'm not a WB movie exec; I'm a movie fan. As a movie fan, I care whether or not I enjoy the movie, not how much it cost to make. Profitability, obviously, is important to the studio, but it isn't a good measure of how many people went to see the movie and may be interested in seeing more.

Movies like Ant-Man and Deadpool had lower budgets, so they may be a better return on investment, esp Deadpool. But they also generated less revenue, especially Ant-Man. Even after the first Avengers, 2 of the 3 Marvel solo Avengers films made significantly less than BvS. That's less people caring enough to go see them.

You dont use the internet often, isnt it ?. Not saying that everyone will think like that; but given that the general public has problems keeping the MCU and the FOX movies separated.........................................



You know that you are basically comparing a movie about these 3, who are more famous than all the Avengers together: ...

Insideguy is right, Marvel doesn't get to play the underdog card any more. Avengers was HUGE. Yet, even after Avengers being the hottest thing in Hollywoood ('til Star Wars came back), Cap and Thor's solo sequels got fewer people to the theater than BvS.

You're right that much of the general audience doesn't pay enough attention to keep all the heroes straight with which movie company. So, I doubt that 3-4 years from now, BvS will keep many people from going to see Aquaman or Cyborg. They will care much more about their appearance in JL and whether or not the previews look good.

Just as Marvel movies vary quite a bit in how much money they make, I suspect that DC movies will be roughly the same with some movies doing much better than others. I don't doubt that BvS could have been better, but $850 mil and counting isn't so bad as to kill all subsequent DC movies either.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Batman does make more but Superman sells about 2-300mm in retail merchandise a year. That's Super-logo underoos to lunch pails and etc.
Your pretty accurate with your assessment of their respective movies but I think you didn't consider overall merchandising.

Merchandising doesn't mean box office though. As someone posted Spider-Man is a much bigger character than Deadpool the last 30+ years. According to this article in 2013 alone Spider-Man licensed merchandise earned $1.3 Billion dollars.

http://www.newsarama.com/22711-spide...g-revenue.html


Merchandise doesn't mean squat when it comes to people going to see films.