AHepBurn

Thing is, you can't quantify "good" like that. Movies are art. And by it's nature art is highly subjective. For instance I generally like Tony Scott films. Top Gun (56% - Rotten, 86% Audience)) is currently kind of a beloved classic and the highest grossing film of 1986. That situation probably doesn't occur with Rotten Tomatoes in the 80s. Man on Fire (39% - Rotten, 89% Audience), another Tony Scott film, wouldn't have gotten a fair shot. And so on and so forth. There's so many films throughout history that have needed a bit of time to be properly appreciated and there are movies that were initially really praised but have since gone down in opinion. Citizen Kane wasn't entirely appreciated on it's release and it's really only today that it's regarded as one of the greatest movies ever. My personal favorite cult film, Big Trouble in Little China, was initially mixed in critical response upon release but sits at 82% - Fresh today. The Thing, another John Carpenter movie, was really hit hard by critics upon release but currently sits at 81% - Fresh today. I'm sure everyone has movies that they love but have low ratings on RT and vice versa. Rotten Tomatoes doesn't really measure if a movie is "good." At best it really measures is "If I were the average moviegoer, what percentage likelihood would I say 'It was alright.'" for wide release movies. And critical reception at times could be even more out of tune with audience reception when it comes to smaller films like The Witch (91% - Fresh, 56% Audience), which I will also say my horror aficionado friends absolutely loathed. So yes, Rotten Tomatoes is a problem and it's one that Hollywood needs to solve.

Shouldn't be that surprising. I've said before that the with the DC movies WB/DC is like a batter that typically tries to hit it out of the park every... single... time. As a result, they'll suffer a higher share of strikeouts (Catwoman, Jonah Hex, Green Lantern, etc.) than others who play things safer. But when when they connect ('78 Superman, '89 Batman, The Dark Knight, now Wonder Woman), that ball goes FLYING and EVERYTHING changes. It's perhaps not the safest strategy, but damn if it isn't fun to watch. The box office performances of every DCEU movie has been really entertaining to follow and Justice League isn't going to be any different.

Obligatory

It really is kind of fascinating to watch. It's a combination of the generally high opening cape genre as well as the more robust legs of female-centric films and also a novelty factor. I simply can't see any later female-led cape film come close to what WW is doing. Possibly a really well received Harley Quinn movie that pulls in teen/20s/early-30s women hard. Going to finally have a chance to take my 6-year old daughter today. Also, obligatory:

Did someone say legs?

Hulk will add something, but I don't think it's going to be much. He's not really a draw. Both the Ang Lee Hulk and the MCU Hulk pulled in ~$130mil DOM and there's a lot of audience overlap with Thor.

Thor's either been sub-$200mil or barely crossed it. I don't see it doing all that different with the third, especially since the MCU audience isn't really growing. Spidey also wouldn't be able to cross it without Sony renting RDJ. Hos presence in the movie is pretty much the only reason it'll get over $300mil. JL should cross $300 mil easily even without WW doing spectacularly right now. They're just so damn consistent with their numbers.

So I've been regarding WW's run as "above average" thus far. Are we officially in "break out" territory now?

Yeah, but even then both MoS and WW have very specific reasons for their box office performances. MoS made $63mil in China, which is decent considering that country has no background with Superman unlike places like the US who were exposed to things like the Donner movies. And as for WW and China, as I said earlier it's completely due to the female lead. When MoS came out in 2013 there were four comic book movies - MoS, IM3, T:TDW and The Wolverine. The only one that MoS didn't outpreform in China was IM3. The DCEU movies tend to preform fine worldwide and tend to overpreform in Spanish and Portugese speaking countries. It's really just China, where they've preformed just decently instead of having a breakout.

Don't know why you would think this since BvS made $542.9mil and SS made $420.5mil. It's pretty clear WW's international performance is hindered by the role of the female lead, which reduces the overall prospects for most international markets. And even then it's performing respectably, just not breaking out.

Holy crap, WW over BvS DOM is legit. If JL goes over WW, which should be an easy possibility, I can't think of a single movie franchise that not only has basically had increases with each subsequent entry at five movies in at this level but also with each entry having largely different casts. And yes, SS was technically ~5mil less than BvS, but I consider that number small enough to count them as basically even. So, WB all time DOM is below. WW has a good chance at #5 and Justice League has a good chance at going over that. I said before that the DC movies seem to have this weird trend of pulling people purely because they're DC movies, as opposed to the MCU movies which have really clear peaks and valleys depending on the featured actor/character. So if Aquaman performs anywhere near the seemingly steady numbers this franchise is pulling in for various reasons, then you're looking at 7/10 DC movies by the time Aquaman comes and this kind of strange situation where every new DCEU movie is just filling in another spot in the 5-10 range at minimum. Rank Movie Title (click to view) Studio Total Gross / Theaters Opening / Theaters Open 1 The Dark Knight WB $533,345,358 4,366 $158,411,483 4,366 7/18/08 2 The Dark Knight Rises WB $448,139,099 4,404 $160,887,295 4,404 7/20/12 3 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 WB $381,011,219 4,375 $169,189,427 4,375 7/15/11 4 American Sniper WB $350,126,372 3,885 $633,456 4 12/25/14 5 Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice WB $330,360,194 4,256 $166,007,347 4,242 3/25/16 6 Suicide Squad WB $325,100,054 4,255 $133,682,248 4,255 8/5/16 7 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone WB $317,575,550 3,672 $90,294,621 3,672 11/16/01 8 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey WB (NL) $303,003,568 4,100 $84,617,303 4,045 12/14/12 9 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince WB $301,959,197 4,455 $77,835,727 4,325 7/15/09 10 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 WB $295,983,305 4,125 $125,017,372 4,125 11/19/10

You misspelled "amazing".

I believe this legs pic is apt if the 15.8 holds.

Eh, I don't really think so. $100mil is a good number. I think it's largely down to the female lead. I have two groups of male friends who tend to go to most every superhero movie. The only ones from either of those groups to watch WW so far are those who have girlfriends or spouses.

Liam Neeson's always done action alongside more dramatic roles. Excalibur, Krull, Darkman, Phantom Menace, etc. If he enjoys doing it and he's getting paid well I see no reason to lament it, especially if he's still able to do action in his later years. He's certainly an accomplished enough actor that he can basically do anything he wants and nobody will bat an eye.

But the Mummy's mancandy is basically +50yr olds and nobody has an adonis belt.

Yay! I was pipe-dreaming for 25% and expecting 20%. I'll take 23% in a heartbeat. It actually has a chance to go over BvS's second weekend! And although I really didn't expect it, but WW might join it's DCEU brethren in the $300mil DOM club to keep up with it's current franchise watermarks. More importantly to myself at least, it'll be yet another DC movie that could likely crack WB's Top 10 all-time and would break the DC-HP tie for their top franchise. Rank Movie Title (click to view) Studio Total Gross / Theaters Opening / Theaters Open 1 The Dark Knight WB $533,345,358 4,366 $158,411,483 4,366 7/18/08 2 The Dark Knight Rises WB $448,139,099 4,404 $160,887,295 4,404 7/20/12 3 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 WB $381,011,219 4,375 $169,189,427 4,375 7/15/11 4 American Sniper WB $350,126,372 3,885 $633,456 4 12/25/14 5 Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice WB $330,360,194 4,256 $166,007,347 4,242 3/25/16 6 Suicide Squad WB $325,100,054 4,255 $133,682,248 4,255 8/5/16 7 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone WB $317,575,550 3,672 $90,294,621 3,672 11/16/01 8 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey WB (NL) $303,003,568 4,100 $84,617,303 4,045 12/14/12 9 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince WB $301,959,197 4,455 $77,835,727 4,325 7/15/09 10 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 WB $295,983,305 4,125 $125,017,372 4,125 11/19/10

And as I said above, that kind of "Holy crap! This is going to be big! Push harder!" marketing doesn't happen. Marketing campaigns are planned out for months if not years in advance. Booking outlets to run ads, organizing promotional partners, creating material and trailers and the like take months of planning and preparation. If you're seeing a strong push at a certain time and at certain locations then that was planned from the outset. Additionally the target audiences for a particular product responds differently due to different methods of advertising. You also need to be selective about where you do your primary marketing push to reach your desired demos. If for some reason you still don't believe me, watch this video, which came out a couple of weeks before the primary push occurred. This is Kristin O'Hara, the chief marketing officer for Time Warner talking at a marketing conference about the promotional strategy for Wonder Woman that started two years ago. In it she talks about how the long, mid-sized promotional campaign for Supergirl allowed them to get great data about female superhero fans and how they found that having small moments over a long period of time allowed them to very effectively market Supergirl and Wonder Woman as opposed to the kind of months long media carpet bombing that you're complaining about the movie missing. https://streamable.com/zdri0

Nobody's going to think of things in those sort of terms if Wonder Woman outgrosses BvS other than a small niche who want to hold onto harping about BvS out of some obsessive need to shit on it. If Wonder Woman outgrosses BvS there's only going to be three real reactions. 1) Wow, DC really course corrected! 2) Wow, Wonder Woman has broken through the glass ceiling! And the one from the studio. 3) Wow, every DC movie we've made has just about earned more money than the last! Make more!

You can't really do a kind of last minute "Oh, the critics really like it! Here's another $50mil in promo money, quick!" campaign like you seem to be implying. Booking time with outlets, making promotional material, etc. takes months of work in advance. There was a marketing conference with a panel featuring the head of WB's marketing and she was describing how they used new ideas and principles with the Suicide Squad marketing to hit target awareness numbers months ahead of schedule and they were doing much of that with Wonder Woman. WB really is just efficent with their marketing these days.

This is true though.

Wow, Zack Snyder himself is gracing our board with his presence. I agree with them. BvS UE > MoS > WW >>> SS. And I REALLY like WW. The only DCEU movie that I'm really disappointed with is SS, which really isn't even near the same league as the other three. Which is a shame as I think all the footage we've seen in the movie and in the promotional material is absolutely fantastic. I think an amazing movie was unfortunately left on the cutting room floor.

Really happy that Wonder Woman looks like it's going to cross the 100mil mark. Just came out of my second viewing and I liked it even more than the first. And my "art and making of" book for it just came! Hopefully I can get through a good portion of it before round three with the rest of the ladies happens next weekend. I also wanted to see King Arthur but I don't know when I can find the time. I don't care about the reviews! Ritchie's one of my directors and I've enjoyed just about everything from him - Snatch, RocknRolla, Sherlock Holmes, Man from UNCLE, etc.

Gah! Got my tabs mixed up and posted it on the wrong thread. Edited.

I'm glad people have gotten to watch Wonder Woman now that it's out and I'm glad people are enjoying it. As I've said previously, it was a much more straightforward superhero and blockbuster movie than I would have liked, but it's a well made one at that. Anyway, hoping for the best with regards to the numbers. As I've said for the longest time, I think it'll come close to the DCEU's averages of $130mil OW, +$300mil DOM, +800mil WW and the reviews will hopefully push it there. Still planning on seeing it three more times.