What do you make of Justice League's box office results?
- 300 million production budget (potential 165 + marketing budget)
- set to open with 90-100 domestically (below every other DC Extended Universe film)
- past precedent suggests short-legs (possibly below 200 million domestically, half of Wonder Woman)
- overseas returns are, as of right now, inconclusive.
- reviews are mixed-to-negative, but are above Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad.
I'll delve deeper into the actual numbers on Monday morning as I try to do every week in my 2017 at the box office thread, but I wanted to talk a little bit about the current numbers being reported for the new Justice League film. The projections made by analysts had expectations as high as 130 million for the film, which would have placed it a little lower than Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, a fact that could have been seen as disappointing considering the fact that Justice League was intended as DC's Avengers, whereas Dawn of Justice was more an effort to get the cogs rolling for DC's Extended Universe. Instead, unfortunately, for fans, the current projections have Justice League to open with somewhere around 90 million domestically, which would be the lowest of the DC Universe thus far, even below Man of Steel. The current mind-set I have is that this is disastrous for the film. Assuming this film performs in line with Batman v Superman and not Wonder Woman, for instance, than this film's multiplier will have it falling short of 200 million (half of Wonder Woman's domestic total), which would be very disappointing for a film of this amount.
Justice League has a reported production budget of about 300 million, and, although we don't know the marketing budget spent on the film, the marketing budget for Batman v Superman was reported at being 165 million, if the same is true for Justice League, then, that means that 465 million has been spent to make this film exist.
The actual facts for how much Justice League needs in-order to break even will likely be an article of discussion in weeks to come, but it's important to note that it's all entirely speculation and there is too large an area for error to actually make an accurate decision.
The simple truth is that there is too many factors that aren't made available. For instance, when Batman v Superman came out, everyone said it needed to make "800 million" to break-even, but the logic itself was overly simplified, everybody was simply doubling the budget. In overseas territories, I've always been informed by analysts that they received about 50% of the profit, or less, and only receive 25% in China, whereas domestic total can be sporadic, with a common percentile being 60%, but it also depends on how much weight the company can throw around (Disney recently showed a prime example of that with their demands for The Last Jedi). Something also to mention is that DVD and Blu-Ray sales have helped Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad considerably. In the United States, both took close to 100 million dollars in profit from home video sales alone, a medium for which they receive a larger slice of the pie than they do in theaters.
Regardless, something that can clearly be seen from Justice League's numbers, however, is that moviegoers, at least casual ones, aren't as interested in Warner Bros.' vision of the DC Extended Universe as Warner would like.
Does this mean that changes will happen? I would have to think so, or even, perhaps, a change as to who helms the Universe as opposed to Snyder. The way I see it is, Aqua-Man is in post-production, Wonder Woman 2 is a go, and Shazam is separate enough from the other properties that it likely won't face much backlash.
From a personal standpoint, I think that DC has made a lot of good decisions for the future in-terms of hiring new blood. I think that Joss Whedon could flourish with Batgirl. I think that Matt Reeves is a fantastic director that could do wonders with The Batman. I think that James Wan has a lot of talent and really look forward to what he tries with Aqua-Man. And Patty Jenkins was a risk that paid off.
I will watch Justice League as soon as I can, and regardless of the box office results, I will go into the film with an open-mind. I actually didn't mind Batman v Superman, pardon some flaws, and I didn't mind Wonder Woman or Man of Steel much either, the only film I really disliked from their Universe is Suicide Squad.