What could be better than one highly-anticipated superhero movie in a single month? Two, you fool! Even better, two from competing brands, creating an implosion of the universal singularity! What fervor.
And some other movies are coming out this weekend, too.
Justice League (Warner Bros.)
Years after Warner Bros. commissioned a Justice League script, the eternal hype inherent to seeing icons of modern mythology grace the silver screen together culminated in one movie. Finally, we’re seeing the League.
That movie was called Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and its stunningly terrible introduction to the Justice League, wherein Wonder Woman (the stunningly excellent Gal Gadot) quietly sits and watches YouTube videos of our beloved DC heroes, wasn’t the greatest start for a burgeoning cinematic universe. Despite that, Batman v. Superman debuted with an ungodly $166.01 million and, despite that, barely doubled that total by its theatrical end ($330.36m). Globally, BvS managed $873.26m which, for transparency’s sake, is nowhere near a bad total. But there’s something to be said about a movie when it features Batman and Superman together for the first time in big-screen history, plus the big-screen introduction of Wonder Woman (and the Flash and Aquaman and Cyborg and you get the idea), and it can’t scratch past $1 billion worldwide when everybody assumed that was a guarantee, regardless of quality.
You’re not here to listen to me ramble about BvS and its flaws as a movie and cultural event, though. You want to see how much Zack Snyder’s Justice League is raring to make.
The DC Cinematic Universe has been doing just dandy thus far, with last August’s Suicide Squad opening with $133.68m and totaling $325.1m domestically/$745.6m globally. That was in spite of critical lashings and a cast of B-list/C-list comic book characters (to be fair, Warner Bros. plugged Batman and the Joker’s appearances every chance they could). That brought us to this June’s Wonder Woman, which beat opening expectations with a $103.25m haul. Then something incredible happened – Wonder Woman tallied $412.56m by the end of its run (officially last week, for the curious), garnering a shocking 3.995x multiplier, becoming the leggiest superhero blockbuster ever. All of this leaves us with quite a range of opening weekend precedents: $103m to $166m, any number in between a possible gross for Justice League.
Marketing for Justice League has been decidedly more fun than that of Batman v. Superman; whereas BvS focused more on the dour themes of superheroes and their place (or lack thereof) in this cold world, Justice League presents itself as a colourful (as colourful as a Snyder movie can be, I guess) two-odd hours of superhero entertainment. Metacritic reports a mixed 49 score for Justice League as of this writing, with the consensus mostly being “it’s okay.”
Obviously, that isn’t an ideal score for an Avengers-style team-up, but after BvS (44 score) and Suicide Squad (40 score) there’s a chance Justice League will be better received by audiences just due to comparative quality. Fandango reports that Justice League is outselling Wonder Woman in pre-sales, though there’s no word on how it’s stacking against Batman v. Superman. Industry analysts are anticipating a debut around $110m-$120m, a notable decline from BvS’ smashing number. Don’t get me wrong, that’s far from a bad number, it’s just less than you’d expect from what ought to be a big event. You also get the feeling Warner Bros., who supposedly put up a jaw-dropping $300m to produce the film, is hoping for quite a bit more. Luckily, 2017 has been the trend of overperforming movies (especially those of the comic book variety) and that could very well benefit Justice League. I’m also of the mindset that Thor: Ragnarok won’t cannibalize much of Justice League’s audience at all.
Plus, it’s the goddamn Justice League. It’ll do well regardless of how any of us feel.
Prediction: $130 million, #1 rank
The Star (Sony)
Well, I suppose every blockbuster needs counter-programming.
Timothy Reckart’s The Star is based on the Nativity of Jesus story, from the perspective of a donkey. It looks Christmas-y enough for the Christmas movie folk and faith-y enough for the faith movie folk, but is it mainstream-y enough for mainstream movie folk? Maybe, but probably not.
To The Star’s detriment, surprising since this is from a major studio, there has been little commercial exposure (I live in a shell sometimes, so correct me if I’m wrong). The film cost $20 million to produce and boy does it show. Good for Sony, as if this hits it’ll hit, but the animation looks like a low-end PS4 game at best and a mobile game at worst. As of this writing, there are no reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, always concerning. On IMDb, The Star holds a 6.4/10 score from 89 ratings, though that’s such a small sample size there’s no reason to make a judgement from it.
When all’s said and done, it’s still a Christmas movie. It’ll have a place, just not that big a place.
Prediction:Â $10 million, #5 rank
Wonder (Lionsgate)
In the winter of 2009, John Lee Hancock’s The Blind Side aptly blind-sided everybody and made a gigantic $255.96 million domestically off a $34.12m debut. And if there’s a movie trying harder to replicate that success than Stephen Chbosky’s Wonder, it’s damn hard to find.
Granted, trying for the next The Blind Side is far from a bad thing. Messages of kindness are welcome and advocating diversity is timely. Reception for Wonder has been positive, carrying a 76% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes (avg. critic score being 6.7/10 from >20 reviews). Wonder won’t put up Blind Side numbers, though. That’s not a knock against the movie; the marketplace is fierce, with this weekend alone debuting two other movies that will compete for all quadrants. Not helping matters is that Disney/Pixar are prepping their own message of kindness and diversity in Coco, which opens next week with acclaim in its corner.
Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson, neither of whom hold much star power these days, headline Wonder. Having recognizable faces certainly works in the film’s favour, but it’s lacking awards buzz for any of their performances (and lacking awards buzz in general). Wonder cost a responsible $20m to produce, and by all means it should do fine. Hell, Wonder has a shot at being a modest sleeper hit. It just won’t be a smash, is all.
Prediction:Â $9 million, #6 rank
HOLDOVERS
2. Thor: Ragnarok (Disney) – $28.5 million (-50%), $251.76m cume
3. Daddy’s Home 2 (Paramount) – $19.3 million (-35%), $55.42m cume
4. Murder on the Orient Express (Fox) – $17.2 million (-40%), $56.12m cume
7. A Bad Moms Christmas (STX) – $8 million (-30%), $51.79m cume
8. Jigsaw (Lionsgate) – $1.7 million (-50%), $37.23m cume
9. Blade Runner 2049 (Warner Bros.) – $1 million (-30%), $89.68m cume
10. Geostorm (Warner Bros.) – $900,000 (-45%), $33.24m cume
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