Spoilers Justice League - Grading and Discussion

That formula about needing double the budget is total bs. Almost no big budget movie would ever make its money back in the old days, before worldwide grosses increased dramatically.

 

No, it's in the ballpark of accurate. JL's production plus movie advertising budget was probably in the ~450 range.

Not quite, I think. Earlier that same paragraph, Jack Shepherd writes "According to Deadline, for Warner Bros. to make any profit, the Avengers-style team-up... needs to make upwards of $750 million." The Deadline article he links to states: "In addition, WB global marketing efforts accumulated 126 partners worldwide, with a total of $350M in promotional and paid media support from such brands as AT&T, Gillette and Mercedes Benz." So, there may have been a worldwide total of $350m in advertising tied to Justice League, but a lot of that - up to 200m, maybe - is for other products (cars, phones, razors, etc.), and therefore not paid for by WB's film division.

The same article also says "I hear from credible financial sources who are privy to Justice League‘s budget that if the film clears $700M-$750M global, after ancillaries, it would profit, but a breakeven scenario exists in the high $600M global B.O. range", so the movie definitely doesn't need to make 1.4bn to recoup; that'd be barking madness. And if WB had really paid ~700m in production and advertising costs all by itself, of course global box office of the same amount wouldn't result in breaking even, what with the theaters taking roughly half. (Not unless they expected to make another 700m in home media sales and rights, that is, but while they certainly help, the days of DVD sales equaling theater profits are long gone.)

 

Actuals are out. $93,842,239. Looks like a bad hold for Sunday. Big drop coming next week.

 

With Pixar's new movie and Star Wars coming out soon, JL is in for Hell of a drop.

 

Star Wars is going to be a juggernaut. I have doubts about Coco. Not because the film will be bad. It sounds fantastic. It is because the short before the film is 30 minutes long and features Olaf from "Frozen". That is indulgent. It was so indulgent that the theaters in Mexico dropped the short.

 

This movie was just... "there" just fine and not exceptional or remarkable in anyway good or bad.

A week ago I was looking at this movie as being like going to eat a meal at McDonald's. It was there, it satisfied some basic needs but it wasn't impressive or anything to write home about. I was certainly not expecting this movie to be like going to a high-quality, fancy, steak restaurant and getting a perfectly cooked, medium-rare, ribeye steak and a wonderful baked potato, side of veggies, a onion blossom for appetizer, and a delicious, orgasmic, piece of cheesecake for desert. That's what this movie should have been, and I knew it wasn't going to go there or be that.

Instead it was just... an average meal at some national-chain family restaurant like TGI-Friday's, Applebee's or something. It's good, better than fast food, but it's not a wonderful experience. Really, that's about as good as we could have really expected.

The problem is, given these characters this should have been an experience we're talking about some of the oldest and most iconic comic book characters in the medium and the movie was alright.

I came out with shrugged, "That wasn't too bad," but I didn't come out of it like I did Avengers or most of the Marvel movies or, hell, even Wonder Woman.

The movie is flawed and fractured and problematic. The only thing that really works is just that the characters click and work well off one another. Their individual "introductory" scenes are good, interactions are good between characters are good (other than Aquaman's "my man!" when rescued by Cyborg. I mean, sheesh) with the weak point being probably Cyborg there was little there and just bad CGI.

The movie was okay. I didn't come out impressed, I came out not disappointed.

But the movie should have been a lot more and much of the problems in it deals with editing (but, jezze, this movie didn't need to be longer. Any longer and it would've likely started going down hill) and largely the "back story" from the previous movie. (Notable MoS and BvS. Superman was good in this, better than he's been in the DCEU so far but it's just a shame they wasted the "Death of Superman" thing already only to have it undone with, really, not much effort or impact. They pretty much just decide to do it, he freaks out, but after a night of sleep he's back to 100%.)

This movie, likely, would've been better with better Superman movie(s) and Batman movie, and having solo films for the other characters as it's hard to really get "into them" when having so little info on them.

The movie is there.

But it could have been, and should have been, much better.

 

I'm not looking forward to the Frozen short either, but I seriously doubt that original Frozen content (bad or not) is going to hurt Coco.

 

Did Disney make the short or was it pixar?

 

Pretty sure it was done by Disney. My understanding is that it was originally going to air as a TV special (hence the length) but someone decided to put it in front of Coco instead. They probably thought they could get Frozen fans to go see Coco, who otherwise wouldn't.

 

I'm completely shocked. Seriously - this was supposed to be The Avengers of the DCEU, a box office monster that would devour $1.5 billion or more. It didn't even cross $100M in it's first week?!?!?! It probably won't get to half of $1.5B. Unbelievable.

The third Thor film - isn't Thor Marvel's weakest franchise? - got better reviews and will probably have a better box office when all is said and done. Unbelievable.

Forbes has an informative article [link] about the disaster written by someone who's a huge fan of the film and wrote a glowing review. He can't even look at it with rosy sunglasses, as much as he admits he'd like to, once you look at the hard numbers.

Where will they go from here? Conventional wisdom the last couple of days seems to be in the direction of a soft reboot... release Aquaman since it's done, keep Gadot as Wonder Woman and make a new film, recast Batman and start a new trilogy that may form the backbone of a new larger universe if they can do it well. And while they're doing that, somehow reboot it hard enough to completely retool it.

What an unmitigated disaster. They made a Man of Steel film that had some decent elements, and then put all of their eggs into the basket of Batman v. Superman and Suicide Squad as the build up to Justice League. Which will now disappear with a whimper.

I should say that I haven't seen it yet. I 'wanted to want' to see it, but each trailer made me less and less enthusiastic about it to the point that I was indifferent to it. To think if I could go back in time a year or two and know I'd feel this way about what was supposed to be a monumental film? Unbelievable.

Love or hate Marvel, Warner has shown how difficult it is to do what Marvel has done. Love or hate the result from a quality standpoint, Marvel sure has it where it counts, $$$$. Warner hasn't and still doesn't appear to have a clue.

BTW, I don't care about Marvel vs. DC. It's better for everyone when both are good, because that forces both of them to improve.

 

This is the superhero mega-movie bonkers-budget-blockbuster bubble burst beginning.

 

It would be awfully nice if that were true.

 

Nah, it's just another terrible movie. Just two weeks ago Thor showed that we havn't even reached the top yet. There's no bubble bursting in sight.

 

I am completely not shocked that most of the people complaining here haven't seen the movie...

 

It's really not. It's just one studio faceplanting in it's rush to catch up to the competition that has already lapped them at least once. It's not even a sudden change of fortunes, just a continuation of a trend that started with MoS. 'Wonder Woman' thus far appears to be an anomaly and not the signal of change some hoped it was.

Maybe on their *fifth* try they'll get it right!?

 

One other problem WB has is that they have attitudes (or hire people with attitudes) along the lines of "Come on, Thor has a movie but Superman doesn't? ANT-MAN?!"

They treat their characters like only the A-Listers are worthwhile.

Meanwhile, Marvel Studios don't have those prejudices. They treat all their characters as being movie-worthy. It opens up new possibilities that WB is only now starting to realize.

 

But what's "right"? Do you want a Marvel clone? I think toning down the Snyderisms might help. I spent the last month arguing and laughing at the conspiracies swirling here, but after watching the Justice League movie, it's pretty clear that some critics just want to tear Snyder a new one. There is just no way that this movie warranted the negativity of some of the worst review. Just no way!

 

That's why they made Suicide Squad, and the next two solos are about Aquaman, the fish guy, and Captain Marvel, who is so popular he doesn't even show up in comics.

 

Marvel does not have 3 characters as popular as Supderman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. At least not ones they had rights to when the MCU was launched. That's why they have a more ensemble approach, while WB has the strong temptation to use their power hitters.

Also, I feel that Marvel has a far more interesting cast of heroes than DC (outside the trinity).

 

"Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated"