10 Reasons Why JUSTICE LEAGUE Flopped at the U.S. Box Office

Dragonlordxxxxx

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10 Reasons for JUSTICE LEAGUE's Disappointing $94 Million U.S. Debut

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Warner Bros. and DC Film’s Justice League made its long-awaited launch last week and it debut to a dismal $94 million at the U.S. box office. The film was tracking to open at $110-$120 million last October. Cut to the present, it couldn’t even crack the $100 million ceiling. Compared to Man of Steel ($116M), Batman v Superman ($166M), Suicide Squad ($133M) and Wonder Woman ($103M), Justice League has the lowest opening weekend for a DCEU film ever. This would be unfathomable five years ago.

When The Avengers (2012) was released and everybody was losing their shit and declaring it to be the best comic book movie ever, the film had a whopping $207 million U.S. opening weekend and ended its theatrical run with $1.5 billion worldwide. People back then were saying that a live-action Justice League movie had a strong chance of beating The Avengers’ box office records, after all DC’s A-team was more popular and more well-known than Marvel’s “second-tier heroes.”

So who or what is to blame for the poor box office performance despite the promise of DC’s most iconic superheroes all gathered in one movie. Putting aside the quality of the actual film, below is a list of reasons that contributed either in a major way or small way to why Justice League flopped at the box office.


1. Post-Traumatic Snyder Disorder
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A lot of people found Batman v Superman relentlessly bleak, joyless, overlong, disjointed and crushed by its grim and incoherent narrative. So when they learn that Justice League is from the same director that made BvS, the thought of revisiting Snyder’s world seemed so unappealing and tedious to them. When they see the dark aesthetics and slow-motion action in the JL trailers, they conclude that JL will be more of the same as BvS.

With JL’s disappointing box office results, the general public is basically saying with their dollars that they don’t want to see a Zack Snyder handling the DCEU. The public actually told this to Warner Bros. with the poor box office performance of BvS last year but the studio refused to listen and now they’re paying the price… again. Even though it would cost them time and money to look for another director since they were already in pre-prodcution, not to mention the public humiliation, Warner Bros. should have just bit the bullet and replaced Synder.

With a reported production budget of $300 million and P&A (print & advertising) cost at $150 million, Justice League is considered to be the 3rd most expensive movie ever made. Box office experts report that the film might end up losing $50 to $100 million after its theatrical run. Ouch.


2. Batman v Superman was already like a Justice League movie
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The reason why the gathering of DC’s most popular superheroes didn’t feel quite as special in Justice League because WB already spoiled that moment with Batman v Superman where the Trinity (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman) met for the first time and battled Doomsday. The $166 million opening BvS received would have belonged to JL if the the Big Three didn’t meet already. Sure, JL featured Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg joining the team but the casuals didn’t really care much for these “2nd-rate characters” since WB never gave them a solo movie prior to this, hence, the public didn’t really know them or cared much about them.


3. Rotten Tomatoes "cover-up" and score
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Rotten Tomatoes has become a very popular review aggregation website to the general public. So when RT withheld its score for Justice League to promote their Facebook show See It/Skip It (they also withheld their scores for other movies even before this), the public mistakenly thought it meant that JL must be really bad due to the embargo since Warner Bros. has a minority stake in RT. That incident and along with the actual RT score of 40% discouraged a lot of moviegoers to seeing BvS.


4. Poor word of mouth from the general public
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Even if you take out RT and the critics out of the equation, the public word of mouth has been mixed. Half that have seen Justice League thought it was good but not great, and half thought it was just above average or decent. Not exactly encouraging to hear for those undecided moviegoers, nor is it compelling enough to make them buy a ticket.

Five years ago when The Avengers came out, posters were singing its praises and raining down 9 and 10 star ratings like they were in a strip club. As of this writing, there’s barely any 9s and zero 10s so far in the Justice League ratings poll.


5. Marketing too early causing Justice League fatigue
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To assure the public that Justice League was not going to be as dark and gloomy as Batman v Superman, Warner Bros. invited the media on June 2016 for a sneak preview of a comical meeting between Bruce Wayne and Barry Allen and a scene where the team, except for Flash, disappears on Commissioner Gordon. WB then released the first official Justice League trailer to the general public at Comic-Con on July 2016, one year and four months before the film's release date. Since then, the public has been steadily bombarded with promos for the next 16 months which could have caused a Justice League fatigue among moviegoers.

This is one of the problems with Warner Bros. handling of the DCEU, they’re always reacting, sometimes over-reacting, and don’t have enough overriding vision. Let’s take a look at how Marvel Studios is handling their marketing for Avengers: Infinity War. Aside from the sizzle reel shown to the Comic-Con attendants, they still haven’t released a single official trailer for Infinity War yet and that movie comes out in just five months.


6. No Superman in promos
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Superman is noticeably absent from most of the marketing promos and posters for Justice League. I actually applaud them for not spoiling Superman’s return, even though everybody who followed the movie’s progress knows he is in there. But the fact is that the presence of Superman in the trailers and posters could have enticed casual viewers to go watch the movie and give JL an extra $10-$15 million boost to its opening weekend. Not really important but the team photos from the posters sorely lacks the vibrant blue color from Superman’s costume as well as seeing the iconic character with the team (plus they badly need a bright green color from Green Lantern or Martian Manhunter).


7. Thor: Ragnarok stealing Justice League's thunder
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Thor: Ragnarok came out 2 weeks ago and, not only received tons of praises from critics and audience alike, but debut to a surprising $122 million ($28 million more than Justice League). If somebody said last year that Ragnarok would defeat JL at the box office, that person would be laughed at. A Justice League insider tells THR, "If a B character from Marvel shut downs and outperforms the A team from DC, that’s an embarrassment." Indeed.

Ragnarok also earned $21.7 million on its 3rd weekend and possibly diverting ticket sales from JL. It’s also possible that casual moviegoers’ superhero fix have been met with Ragnarok and they’re no longer interested in seeing another superhero movie for the time being.

It's funny looking back at an old interview Snyder made back in 2008 where he made this foot-in-the-mouth statement, "The Marvel universe has gone nuts; we’re going to have a fricking Captain America movie if we’re not careful. Thor, too! We’re on our second Hulk movie. And Iron Man — $300 million domestic box office on a second tier superhero!" And this one in 2011, "I’m like, really? Thor? Thor has a movie? [Laughter.] Really? I mean, come on."


8. Steven Chbosky’s Wonder
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Steven Chboksy’s drama Wonder starring Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson earned an impressive $27 million to land No. 2 at the weekend box office, stealing some of the Justice League’s ticket sales. Per THR, Lionsgate's marketing team aggressively targeted elementary schools, a move that is paying off, with higher-than-usual group ticket sales. Busloads of kids from school went on a field trip to see Wonder, which also meant that some of the parents didn't also get the chance to accompany their kids to watch Justice League. RJ Palacio’s New York Times bestseller tells the story of a child with Treacher Collins Syndrome trying to fit in at a new school. Wonder is produced by Marvel Studios. (No it’s not)


9. Reports of post-production troubles
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Due to a family tragedy, Snyder left Justice League on May 2017 and Warner Bros. assigned Joss Whedon, who was already brought in by the studio months ago to rework on the script, to finish post-production and film the reshoots. On July 2017, word got out that the massive reshoots cost $25 million (the average reshoot for this type of movie cost around $6 to $10 million). Henry Cavill's mustache was also an issue as he was filming Mission: Impossible 6 at the same time as the Justice League reshoots. Paramount refused to let Cavill shave his mustache, so WB had to spend millions just to digitally remove the facial hair in post.

Soon, reports came in that WB has neutered Snyder and will no longer be a major creative influence for the DCEU. Near the JL release date, the negative buzz on Henry Cavill's CGI'd mouth began to circulate. All of this behind-the-scenes post-production drama and negativity could have influenced moviegoers into thinking that JL was going to be a disaster and not worth it to see at the cinemas.


10. Seventh member was deleted from final cut
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One of the reasons for Justice League’s stumble at the box office is the removal of all the scenes of the seventh member - Steve - in the actual movie despite being heavily promoted in their posters [1] [2], cover books [3], behind-the-scenes photo [4] and they even showed a clip [5] of this member in action. Snyder even teased Steve way back in 2015 when he tweeted a Justice League image with the slogan “Unite the Seven.” Such a shame, I for one would have liked to see war criminal and Marvel turncoat Steve kick some parademon butts.
 
10.5. [Bonus] Some people thought it wasn’t happening or it’s not real
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For years, @prod2821 kept telling posters that the Justice League movie is not happening and it’s not real. This might have affected a lot of the posters into believing that the movie is fake and influenced them to just watch The Punisher on Netflix instead. My "sources" tell me that San Antonio has the lowest ticket sales for Justice League among all the cities around the world.
 
10.5. [Bonus] Some people thought it wasn’t happening or it’s not real
pVyJwwD.jpg

For years, @prod2821 kept telling posters that the Justice League movie is not happening and it’s not real. This might have affected a lot of the posters into believing that the movie is fake and influenced them to just watch The Punisher on Netflix instead. My "sources" tell me that San Antonio has the lowest ticket sales for Justice League among all the cities around the world.
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I've got a few other reasons: nothing feels special about this series, and it reeks of an epic cashgrab by WB to even the casual audience.

Doesn't feel like a legendary crossover, characters are poorly established coming in, inconsistent planning, and no excitement for the expansion of the shared universe due to the aforementioned reasons.
 
I didn't watch it because i have zero interest in it. I like Batman but in his own Batman world, having other superheroes with batman doesnt make sense to me. Most people I know don't have interest in it not because of any bad press or word or mouth, they just have no interest in comics/superheros and wouldn't have watched it anyways.

i think a lot of people here over-estimate how popular superheros are because we read the comics as kids and are the target audience as fans of the comics. I have a lot of friends and family who could care less about superheros. I think the reason Marvel has been doing well is because they are more kid friendly. the friends/family i have who have watched the marvel movies did so because their kids wanted to watch them. kids movies do well. these movies should be for kids anyways. batman i think is the exception where it can be dark and can have a larger grownup audience.
 
They should've opened the movie with a pornographic scene featuring Gal Gadot.
 
@Dragonlordxxxxx this reads like you wrote it, is this your article ? and not a copy paste or what is up.

Dragon may be leading a double life.. casting director and online movie news editor plus his other sherdog life triple ? o_O
 
WB doesn't know how to market to their strengths.

Movie was awesome, Aquawarrior KidFlash and Sexywonder should have carried it.
 
All valid reasons but Snyder definitely takes the cake here. Fuck that guy.
 
I've got a few other reasons: nothing feels special about this series

Right here is what I really really agree with

Justice League felt rushed and didn't have that special feeling that even BVS had when it first came out

Justice League didn't generate that casual buzz that you would expect
 
The whole RT covering up their score thing was fucking stupid.

My solution was simply to go see what the Metacritic score was. The literally drove me to the competitor.
 
The whole RT covering up their score thing was fucking stupid.

My solution was simply to go see what the Metacritic score was. The literally drove me to the competitor.

The score isn't even used right anymore

It had just become a device to troll people

Wonder Woman gets a good score so DC fans troll Marvel Fans

Justice League gets a bad score so Marvel fans troll DC fans

I am extremely sick of it at this point honestly
 

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