Post by Admin on Nov 20, 2017 6:16:27 GMT
By BROOKS BARNES
NOVEMBER 19, 2017
“Justice League” was supposed to be the ultimate box office juggernaut.
The movie features a murderer’s row of superheroes: Wonder Woman, Batman, Cyborg, the Flash, Superman, Aquaman. Some of the world’s most popular stars — Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa, Amy Adams — fill out the cast. Joss Whedon, the writer-director behind “The Avengers,” one of the biggest ticket sellers of all time , helped write the screenplay.
Instead, “Justice League” collected a disappointing $96 million at North American theaters over the weekend, or 42 percent less than its franchise predecessor, “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” had over its first three days in March 2016. It was enough to top the weekend box office, but analysts had expected “Justice League” to take in at least $110 million based on surveys that measure prerelease audience interest.
Most movies would be instant blockbusters with $96 million in opening-weekend ticket sales. But “Justice League” is far from a typical movie. On top of the blue-chip characters it assembles, the film cost at least $400 million to make and market worldwide. (Overseas, “Justice League” collected an additional $185.5 million, with strong results in South Korea and Brazil.)
The lackluster domestic turnout for “Justice League” raises new questions about the ability of Warner Bros. to effectively exploit its DC Comics characters on the big screen. Warner has delivered successful television adaptations like “The Flash,” “Gotham” and “Arrow.” But four of the studio’s last five superhero movies — designed to sell mountains of merchandise in addition to tickets — have been considered letdowns, to one degree or another. “Wonder Woman” is the lone exception.
“Justice League” received
mixed-to-negative reviews . Rotten Tomatoes, the powerful review aggregation site, delayed posting a score for the film until the last minute as part of a new video initiative. That move was interpreted as an effort to hide a “rotten” score, especially since Warner owns 25 percent of Rotten Tomatoes. A spokeswoman for the site subsequently said that Warner was not involved in the decision to delay the score.
“The path to ultimate box office is all about the extremely lucrative Thanksgiving week ahead,” Jeff Goldstein, Warner’s president of domestic distribution, said by phone on Sunday.
The mood was dramatically lighter at Lionsgate, where executives were doing cartwheels over the audience response to “Wonder,” a heartstring-pulling drama about a boy with facial birth defects (Jacob Tremblay), his kind parents (Julia Roberts, Owen Wilson) and his highly unkind schoolmates. “Wonder” collected $27.1 million, according to comScore, which compiles box office data — triple what analysts had expected before its release.
SOURCE: mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/movies/justice-league-wonder-box-office.html?ref=todayspaper&referer=
