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

[Turtlejuice]

The Avengers were an ensemble of established characters that people were already invested in. Justice league was 3 characters people are familiar with, 1 character who is in a popular tv series currently being played by another actor, and some characters that nobody knows about. Who the fuck is aquaman? Why should I care about him? The only reference I have of him is an Indian guy taking the piss out of how shit he is, in Big Bang Theory.

Marvel films are, or at least appear to be family friendly movies. DC films don't.

 

[Dusty Rhodes]

These movies are generally really mediocre, or pretty bad. That includes the Marvel ones.

They need to do what they did with Daredevil/Punisher and stretch the story out episodically rather than cram everything into a 2 hour movie.

 

[robertcop2]

Snyder sucks. Watchmen was successful because he copy+pasted the story frame by frame. MoS and BvS are baaaad movies. Suicide squad is not only bad, it is ridiculous and cringeworthy. It looks and feels like a B-movie.

DC executives are so stupid. Why rush, and why compete with Marvel? Seriously, why? That's one of the most stupid business decisions of all time. People will watch every comic book movie, especially if they are released in different weekends, different months.

There is room for everybody in the comic book movie universe. Take your time, develop good characters, and do not compete with Marvel, you fucking dumbasses.

 

[LilMountain]

Spoiler

I'd really like to see them bust out an alternate universe plot to do the reset, so that they can keep the actors people like (ww and Aquaman) while still resetting the rest. So they go to a universe where maybe the light is imperceptibly different but weakens current Supe (and the new one too if they don't want to make him quite such a deus ex), Batman already trained Dick Grayson to take over the mantle so they can go younger, Wonder Woman and/or Aquaman never left their homes to join the world or die during the movie, their flash can be the CW one, etc
That way Darkseid can be such a badass it takes two full teams to beat and even kills some of them (maybe the steppenwolf there makes an appearance with a sword instead of axe and a one-liner about his weapon preference)

 

[usmctanker242]

I had no idea this movie was even a thing until a few days ago... they did a 16 month marketing campaign and I never once saw a single thing about it? Not saying I'm their "core audience" but I do like Batman and have seen / liked most of the Marverl superhero movies.

 

[Myrddin Wild]

Thanx for that breakdown brother @Dragonlordxxxxx ... number 10 is likely the thing that killed it the most. Funny... but in a way, it's kind of true... as you mentioned in #2... it lacked Star Power outside of the big 3. Thanx for the breakdown bro... great article.

This was covered in number 2... that Aquaman wasn't a well known character because he had no stand alone movie. To be honest, I was underwhelmed when I first heard they were going to make one & that he was going to be in Justice League, but he seemed really cool in the trailers, so I started to warm up to him.

Okay, so with that said... word is that the f*cking Aquaman movie is done... lol... so if it's done, they should've put it out first & then dropped Justice League later. Then they'd have 4 starz on the screen instead of 3.

 

[Myrddin Wild]

I still have hope that it will bounce back this coming 4 day thanksgiving weekend. Are there any indications that the casualz... or the kids are loving it? If there is good chatter in the streets it will come thundering back this weekend as families get together & chit chat about anything & everything... & then have 3 more dayz left in the weekend to get to the theaterz.

 

[HereticBD]

Lack of familiarity with the characters. The Avengers wasn't some overnight success. Say what you want about Marvel/Disney, but they took their time, and built a foundation before they went all in. DC rushed to catch up, and the results are not too surprising.

Marvel laid the blueprint down, and DC just thought "Nah, fuck all that. Too much work. These nerds will watch anything with their favorite characters in it."

 

[Fanu]

I'm amazed that people still dont have superhero movie fatique considering this super hero fad has been going on for 17 years now, since the release of first x-men movie

honestly, how many more bullshit stories and same characters can you watch before figuring out its all pointless and really poorly executed ?
might as well watch transformers - its also got over the top action and characters that dont change

 

[LilMountain]

I'm amazed that people still dont have superhero movie fatique considering this super hero fad has been going on for 17 years now, since the release of first x-men movie

honestly, how many more bullshit stories and same characters can you watch before figuring out its all pointless and really poorly executed ?
might as well watch transformers - its also got over the top action and characters that dont change

Yes they do, that's their main gimmick it's even in the name

 

[Fanu]

Yes they do, that's their main gimmick it's even in the name

have a cookie for the effort

 

[Organic Damage]

No Green Lantern

The Justice League without Green Lantern is like the X-Men without Cyclops.

It's not Canon.

This in itself shows DC doesn't want to "earn it". They fucked up the solo GL movie, yet rather than take the time to get one of the core JL members right, they just said "fuck it, nobody will notice if he's missing" and went full steam ahead.

Now casuals might not notice the difference, but the hardcore fans whose word of mouth drives these kind of movies definitely did. Superman not showing up in the promotions also didn't help, but as noted, we knew he was coming.

 

[LilMountain]

have a cookie for the effort

 

[liljoe]

I still have hope that it will bounce back this coming 4 day thanksgiving weekend. Are there any indications that the casualz... or the kids are loving it? If there is good chatter in the streets it will come thundering back this weekend as families get together & chit chat about anything & everything... & then have 3 more dayz left in the weekend to get to the theaterz.

I sure hope so. That pile of shit Pirates of Caribbean 2017 made 794 million and the even larger one Transformers made 605 million.
I find it near impossible to believe this wont hit at least 700 million. So let's see.

 

[Buddy Revell]

The Avengers were an ensemble of established characters that people were already invested in. Justice league was 3 characters people are familiar with, 1 character who is in a popular tv series currently being played by another actor, and some characters that nobody knows about. Who the fuck is aquaman? Why should I care about him? The only reference I have of him is an Indian guy taking the piss out of how shit he is, in Big Bang Theory.

Marvel films are, or at least appear to be family friendly movies. DC films don't.

This narrative needs to die already because It's patently false.
Outside of Iron-man and Iron-Man 2, nobody in the general public saw those other MCU Avengers lead ins. And if you don't believe me, look up the meager box office numbers of Thor, TIH, and CA:FA.

The Avengers was huge because RDJ's Iron-Man was hugely popular and the movie absolutely nailed HULK, the most recognizable member among casuals.

The Avengers made people care about Black Widow, Thor, and Captain America...as evidenced by the bump the latter two got in post Avengers solo movies.

But back to DC. Just like Wonder Woman got a bump from BvS, I think Aquaman and Flash are both in place to have hit solo movies providing the movies are good (hopefully WB just let James Wan do his thing and does the same for a good director on Flashpoint).

They need to focus on the stand alone movies for the next 3 years or so, and build up the goodwill and trust for another Justice League team up.

 

[John Wang]

10.5. [Bonus] Some people thought it wasn’t happening or it’s not real

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.

LOL

 

[Jayzer193]

This! Couldn't stop fucking laughing. Gold

 

[Myrddin Wild]

I sure hope so. That pile of shit Pirates of Caribbean 2017 made 794 million and the even larger one Transformers made 605 million.
I find it near impossible to believe this wont hit at least 700 million. So let's see.

Are those world wide figures or just domestic?

I agree that Pirates 2017 was sub-par. left me a bit empty... I wouldn't call it total sh*t though. Still had the characters i love... & the scene where he ropes the rocks to turn the ship was pretty cool. young Jack was neat. Barboza being the dad & sacrificing himself to save her gave me some feelz. I dug the villian... but they needed a better explanation as to how they got cursed.

Pulling the bank through town waz total cringe & the movie slowed down after that for a while. It was entertaining seeing Jack spinning with the guilotine going up & down... but still pretty silly. The whole movie pending on finding the staff & then was kind of anti-climactic that they just had to destroy it. There's a lot more subtler cringe thingz & a lot more endearing things I'm not mentioning... just saying it wasn't total sh*t, but it left me feeling like it was a sub-par effort.

 

[I Am Legion]

1. Snyder is bad. He makes dark boring dull movies with shit plots.

2. These are Super Hero movies.....Stop treating them like Schindler’s List. We need color and fun mixed in with great action......Like Thor Rangarock and The Avengers. Spider-Man is good when it’s fun, not depressing.

3. After Suicide Squad and BvS this movie had no chance.

4. Cyborg and Aquaman bring nothing to table....and you cast Ezra Miller as Flash????? He is the gay kid from Wallflower and the gay kid from Trainwreck.....terrible for such a great character.

And Dragonlord I agree with all.

 

[Dragonlordxxxxx]

2. Disagree. BvS was and introduction to the three that will carry the DCU, but clearly not a "league".

Technically, not a Justice League movie but Batman v Superman felt like a Justice League movie. The Big Three were there and even the rest of the secondary characters made a cameo appearance. That is why the actual JL movie was not as special because it was already spoiled by BvS. The $166 million BvS got for their opening weekend could have been Justice League if Warner Bros. was patient and laid a proper groundwork for their solo movies.

4. Meh.

Word of mouth is a very powerful influencer. Just in my experience in here alone, I've seen people decide to watch or not watch a movie because of the masses opinion.

7. Not sure how another movie can be blamed. "Wonder" is in a completely different genre. People who are going to watch Wonder will watch Wonder. People who are in the comic book target audience, in theory, would watch JL.

Lionsgate, the distributor for Wonder, pushed teachers of third grade through sixth grade to take field trips to see the movie leading to huge presale figures. Busloads of kids went to see Wonder on the opening weekend instead of Justice League. Those same school kids would have brought their parents with them if they wanted to watch Justice League. The result is a $27 million for Wonder.

10. Who was the 7th? Superman? Green Lantern? Shazam? Don't keep me waiting or else I'm assuming it's Gleek the Blue Monkey.

I have a feeling you just read the headlines and did not read the explanations. Everything is there if you're observant and willing to click on those little numbers found in #10.