Batman v Superman Box Office: The Record Breaking Weekend and What It Means

Despite being overwhelming drubbed by critics — including yours truly — Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice found a lot of success, at least in the realm of selling tickets. Its estimated $170m opening will be the largest of any DC Comics film, the best March opening weekend ever and the sixth biggest domestic opening weekend of all-time.

This is a very impressive feat of marketing for the team at Warner Bros., considering the uphill battle faced by a wave of negative buzz that engulfed the film in the week leading up to its release. Consider this: the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score of any film other than BvS in the top 10 domestic opening weekends of all-time is Jurassic World at 72%. Everything else is above 75%. Batman v Superman earned only 29% positive reviews. Here’s the list with domestic grosses and Rotten Tomatoes scores:

1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($247m): 92%
2. Jurassic World ($208m): 72%
3. Marvel’s The Avengers ($207m): 92%
4. Avengers: Age of Ultron ($191m): 75%
5. Iron Man 3 ($174m): 79%
6. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ($170m): 29%
7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ($169m): 96%
8. The Dark Knight Rises ($160m): 87%
9. The Dark Knight ($158m): 94%
10. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire ($158m): 89%

Batman v Superman is a clear outlier. It wasn’t that it got a bunch of middling reviews from critics — who, as you can see, are usually pretty in-line with the demand of the masses despite claims to the contrary — Snyder’s film got hammered.

Did these massive audiences like it?

The big question that remains for BvS is how well it will do in the coming weeks. It received a ‘B’ grade from Cinemascore, which is essentially like exit polling for movies. This polls fans seeing the film on opening night — usually the most active and passionate moviegoers. If you received a ‘B’ on a math test in high school, that’s not so bad. Above average. But a ‘B’ grade from Cinemascore is considered to be pretty bad. Only a few movies ever drop into the ‘C’ range (this includes Zoolander 2, Triple 9 and The Witch in 2016 so far) and is usually a sign that films have been marketed poorly. Having set the wrong expectations for what a film is can yield a very low Cinemascore. For everything else, there’s a range from A+ to B-. Batman v Superman getting a ‘B’ is not a good sign. It’s the same grade audiences gave films like Green Lantern and Catwoman. Even Superman Returns earned a ‘B+’.

For more recent Cinemascore history, consider The Divergent Series: Allegiant, which opened last week to $29m and earned a ‘B’ grade. It fell 67% in its second weekend of release, down to $9.5m.

Considering its opening high, Batman v Superman has far more room for error. But it’s something to keep an eye on, as the film’s second weekend and beyond will be of the utmost importance. It’s been rumored that Warner Bros. is looking for a worldwide take of about $1.15 billion to make the same profit margin that it accomplished with previous Batman movies. That’s not huge when compared with the $1.5 billion Disney and Marvel earned with The Avengers, but much larger than the $668 million earned by Man of Steel. This opening weekend is impressive — $424 million worldwide, per the latest estimates — but the fate of Batman v Superman and Warner Bros. new path toward The Justice League will rest on longevity, not opening weekend.

What does this mean for the future?

Before anyone starts to panic, let’s imagine a scenario in which Batman v Superman fails to achieve its goals at the box office. That doesn’t spell doom for the entire DC Cinematic Universe, but it might prompt Warner Bros. to make some changes. There has already been a course correction on Justice League, with Zack and his producer/wife Deborah Snyder saying that the Justice League movie will be lighter in tone than BvS. Here’s what they had to say in an interview with IGN:

Deborah Snyder: Justice League’ is a little bit lighter, ‘cause some of these characters — you know, Flash tends to be a little bit more comedic, I’d say.

Zack Snyder: One of the things that lightens it is having Flash or having characters that are more optimistic. [Batman v Superman] is particular to characters who are having a crisis of conscience, which sort of draws them together.

A lighter tone might help. Perhaps we’ll see them bring in a new screenwriter to help punch up the tone and smooth out some of the narrative rockiness we say in BvS. The fact remains that it’s too late for Warner Bros. to change course in any dramatic fashion. Zack Snyder said this week that shooting starts on Justice League in two weeks. And Wonder Woman is already well into production. The films that could be in dangers are the post-Justice League solo films. The Flash and Aquaman, both scheduled for 2018 releases, are in pre-production. A solo Batman movie is due in 2018, but as of yet hasn’t been completely confirmed (this is the one I’d like to see most). Then we’ve got Shazam, Justice League 2, Cyborg, Green Lantern Corps and a host of other fun rumors for 2019 and beyond. Those are the kinds of projects that could be reshuffled in the wake of a less than stellar box office run for Batman v Superman.

The hope from fans, critics and anyone who loves gaudy, fantastic superhero movies — like yours truly — is that Batman v Superman won’t be either the template for future DC Comics movies or their downfall. The hope is that Warner Bros. and DC will see value in continuing with their plans, but also learn from this movie’s mistakes. Because a cinematic version of Aquaman is something audiences have earned by supporting so many superhero retreads over the years. And seeing the Justice League on screen together for the first time will have that same inherent excitement factor as seeing The Avengers did.

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