LordNox

All Marvel characters are much more popular than DC characters. So by your logic WB should stop making any DC movie, not just Batman movies. In fact WB needs Batman, because unlike Marvel people don't care about unknown DC characters which is why no one watched Shazam. Batman is one of few DC character that people have any sort of interest in. In fact you could argue that the reason why WB has to milk Batman is because unlike Marvel WB have failed in making people care about their other characters. Marvel can basically take any of their obscure characters and make them into a movie hit. For WB that is impossible and more likely to lead into Shazam failures. So WB can go the easy route and make a Batman movie that will at least do 700M or something at the box office.

I used to think that DC would win over Marvel next year at the box office. But i now think that Marvel movies are so popular that pretty much every Marvel movie will do more than every DC movie. Even Black Widow will probably crush Wonder Woman at the box office. Sad state of affairs, but WB is killing all popularity of DC characters while Disney does everything right regarding Marvel.

DC has had enough flops. If Birds of prey also flop you wonder if WB will just pull the plug now that Marvel has full monopoly of that genre.

There is a difference between not being as big as the MCU and being a hated franchise like the DCEU is today. Had WB made good movies the DCEU would be a popular and well loved franchise even if less so than Marvel. Instead it is a hated franchise that is as disliked as the transformers movies by most people. The main problem is that the DCEU is so hated that its killing the interest in DC characters all together.

Imagine how much WB must be kicking themselves over their own handling of DC. Instead of having a great, prospering and growing franchise the trend is generally downward for DC, with no movie anymore capable of even opening to 100M. It is now a franchise abandoned by the general public as well as the Snyder cultists now that he was fired. The story of the DCEU is only one of failures and missed opportunities, so the opposite of the MCU. The tragedy is that we will probably never see most DC characters done right at the big screen, they have been made permanently less popular than about every Marvel character.

Sad that Marvel is much more popular. Would have been much more fun to see two evenly matched franchises compete against each other. Instead we have a franchise that no one except Snyder cultists care about compared to the most popular franchise ever in Marvel. WB really killed all interest in DC by hiring Snyder, while Marvel is competently run. Don't see much change the coming years. Marvel has reached such high level of fanbase now that even if DC starts making good movies most people will just ignore the DC movies any way like with Shazam.

Shazam is clearly only liked in the US, while its being rejected almost everywhere overseas. That is why i would question if we ever get a sequel to this. Because why make Superhero movies that bomb overseas?

Absoluteley. CM will be the third highest grossing solo movie in the MCU, but for me at least its of similar quality like Ant-man more than its comparable to the highest quality Marvel movies. I also think the marketing campaign of CM being the first female led MCU movie helped the movie when it comes to the female audience. Its clear that CM was not a better movie than 90 % of the MCU movies that it grossed over. So i agree that CM was placed in the perfect window to capitalize on the huge amount of goodwill audiences have towards the MCU.

I fully agree. But credit to Marvel, because they have made so many well recieved movies in the last 10 years they have gained a huge audience following that mediocre movies lik CM can capitalize on. Had Warner Bros not given the audiences movies like BvS and Suicide Squad its likely that DC movies would also have enjoyed the same upswing in support as well. But hopefully CM was an one off and that Marvel continues to make their movies of the quality that they are known for in the future. thus deserving their great box office results. Even WB got an undeserved major hit in Aquaman, even if i enjoyed Aquaman more than CM that was mostly because i felt it was an action packed fun movie and not because it had a good story or dialogue. So sad to see that Shazam which was a good movie only reaching half the box office of crap like Suicide Squad. But again that has to do with WBs resume when it comes to superhero movies. Hard to sell a lower budget unknown superhero movie like Shazam with a mediocre track record the last 10 years.

Domestically WW was a very popular movie, but was it that well recieved overseas? I don't think WW84 can earn much more than the first one domestically. Its overseas that it has to increase and i'm unsure if it can do more than 500M overseas. If WW84 wants to achieve 1 billion at the box office its likely that it will have to gross 600M overseas, 200M more than the first one. Seems a step too far because i don't think China will give it more than around 100M.

What is clear is that the box office of WW84 will depend more on how good the movie is compared to CM. If WW84 is great i can see it making 400-415M again. If its mediocre it will probably land around 330-350M. While a CM sequel due to the larger fanbase of the Marvel brand can achieve 400M even if its mediocre. DCEU movies are simply much harder to predict when it comes to the BO because DCEU movies doesn't seem to benefit much from other movies in the same universe like Marvel is able to do.

Why waste a slot in the very limited DC movie slots per year for Shazam when chances are that an even mediocre Flash movie would reach 600M WW. Shazam is dead in Asia, only popularity in the US could justify making more Shazam movies when key movie markets have rejected the movie. But it won't make more than 130M in the US, so Shazam is not popular enough in the US to make a movie that is rejected in key markets.

Would that be that unexpected? Even if WW84 turns out better than CM the difference in brand power alone guarantees WW84 to come under CM. WW84 will not earn much in Asia for example. The only popular DC movie in Asia has been Aquaman. Domestically WW84 has a shot to battle CM but overseas the brand popularity alone means that WW84 will have a hard time to reach even 500M overseas, something a Marvel made movie like CM easily can make over.

Why do you CM fans hate WW? Is it because she is the first female superhero ever and did it before CM? CM wouldn't even exist without WW.

I now think Shazam will gross max 130M DOM. If its dropping this big even with weak newcommers its clear that it will be dead when Endgame debutes. I personally hope WB makes movies like Green Lantern and Flash instead of Shazam 2 because i believe those movies have much bigger box office potential. Shazam is hated in Asia and isn't doing much even in the US so i don't see the justification of moving further with a sequel. I do see potential for Shazam in the DCEU, but mostly him interracting with other superheroes where he can be the comic relief character.

Yeah that is a core weakness of the DCEU compared to the MCU. The Marvel universe helps every movie to do better than it would have otherwise done. While DC movies succeed sometimes DESPITE the universe. For Marvel the universe is a huge positive that elevates the box office potential for their movies. While for DC the universe is mostly sinking the box office rather than elevate it.

With the weak appeal of Shazam i really don't understand why WB should move forward with a sequel here instead of making movies with a bigger box office potential like the Flash movie. Shazam on his own is not popular enough to carry his own movie franchise I think using Shazam only makes sense if you put him in movies with other heroes as a comic relief character. Put Shazam with Superman and the appeal may widen somewhat but yet another movie in the same mold as the first one and it will come under 500M WW.

I don't think so. Marvel movies killing the box office hasn't led DC movies to become bigger and more popular. The comic book movie audience is becoming ever more brand aware so Marvel movies only benefit other Marvel movies. The surge of Marvel popularity is not really leading DC to become more popular. And what worse is the fact that DC movies stand only on their own feet. Wonder Woman being popular didn't help Justice League anything and Aquaman being popular didn't help Shazam anything. That is a core weakness of your universe that every movie just lives or dies on its own.

Yeah in hindsight i think Shazam would have done better at the box office if they went even more childish and made it into a PG movie. Maybe have Shazam be like a live action version of the incredibles. And go 100 % for the children and family crowd, instead of just adult superhero fans that only cared about the Marvel movies coming out. With Dumbo bombing a lighter and more childish Shazam movie could have dominated the family crowd fully. But this is all in hindsight and they couldn't predict the audiences rejecting Dumbo.

That makes a sequel exciting to speculate about. Because its clear that if the sequel is similar to the first one it will still do low numbers overseas. And yes the sequel could probably add about 50M more domestically, but the budget will probably be higher as well. I can see the sequel go from 380M like this to 500-550M, but with a bigger budget the profits would be pretty similar. The only way for a sequel to do better than that would be to change a lot to make it more appealing overseas. Because a movie that Asia doesn't care about and doesn't do a lot even in the US and Europe is in a hard spot when it comes to growth prospects for the sequel.

I mean Captain Marvel's drops are miles better than Shazam. So either Captain Marvel's WOM is much better than Shazam's or Shazam has a very limited audience appeal. Captain Marvel has played over a month with great hold while Shazam is dropping big after the first weekend. Not even the likes of Dumbo and Hellboy bombing is helping Shazam at all to hold at the box office. Think how big Shazam's drops would be if both Dumbo and Hellboy were even decent movies.

I think the main confusion with Shazam is that it seems to drop more than a superhero movie with over 90 % on RT and an A cinemascore should do. If it had good word of mouth the drops should be smaller than they really are.

I think they have to ditch the original plan for the sequel and add Superman and Black Adam to take Shazam into over 700M WW.

Yeah but generally Asia doesn't like DC movies anyway. Only Aquaman has been popular there. So China usually don't help DC movies much, sure Shazam is even lower than usual on that front. But its not like China usually loves DC movies.

I think the MCU and the DCEU is the opposite. For the DCEU the period when they got the most hype and biggest openings was at the early stage of the universe. After that both the hype and the openings have been getting smaller. For the MCU the interest and hype have only grown every new MCU phase. So the DCEU started with great interest and hype and declined from there. So now its probably fair to compare the DCEU with the MCU phase 1 in audience interest and hype for the movies.