Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice

[johnnygobbs]

It could end up with a smaller Chinese gross than Ant-Man (2015), the film Snyder dismissed as a "flavour of the month". China is currently the biggest overseas market. It's the key territory if a film wants to join the $1 billion club. Unfortunately BvS just didn't resonate with their audiences. It opened strong, but experienced a sharp OW Sat-Sun drop and lost over 70% of its screens to local releases by the end of its first week. It's also seen dramatic drops here in the UK and in several other key markets.

'Flavour of the month'?  Wow!  What a jerk...especially when Snyder's own film was barely flavour of the week. 

[BatmAngelus]

^ For the link and quote:
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Zack-Snyder-Takes-Shot-Ant-Man-Here-What-He-Said-81867.html

But I feel like Batman and Superman are transcendent of superhero movies in a way, because they're Batman and Superman. They're not just, like, the flavour of the week Ant-Man – not to be mean, but whatever it is. What is the next Blank-Man?

The main problem with Rotten tomatoes is that it's graded on a pass/fail basis and we all know that it's not that simple. Still I'm glad that there's the discrepancy between fan reaction and critics, critics need to be called out for their reviews, it's been well known for far too long that they rate movies based on agendas rather than entertainment factor.

Fan reaction is positive, the box office so far is successful, hopefully DVD/blu ray sales will boom as well so the critics can stick it.

Critics don't have agendas, fan reaction is not universally positive, word of mouth is mixed at best, and box office is dropping and not meeting expectations. We can debate the merits of the actual movie all day, but the view that "Only the critics hated it, everyone else loved it" just doesn't line up with the facts anymore when articles and analyses like what Silver Nemesis and I posted are getting published every day.

[Silver Nemesis]

I don't buy into the critic-agenda theory for one second. Everyone's getting hung up on the 29% score on RT. But if you look below that, you'll see the average critic rating is actually 5/10, which is the median on a 1-10 scale. Meaning the reviews were average. Not good, not awful, just average. If you want to see a film that got really bad reviews, check out last year's Fantastic Four. That has an average rating of 3.4/10 with an overall score of 9%.

Similarly the Metascore for BvS is 44/100, which according to Metacritic's own parameters indicates mixed or average reviews.
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice

Meanwhile word-of-mouth amongst fans is mixed at best. I've been monitoring the responses on about six different message boards since the film's release, and I can honestly say that Batman-Online boasts by far the most positive like/dislike ratio I've seen. Of course we can all present anecdotal evidence to support our perceptions of the response, but let's look at a few facts.

BvS received an audience CinemaScore of B, which is the same rating as Catwoman (2004) and Green Lantern (2011).
https://www.cinemascore.com/

The RT user score has dropped to 70% in less than a fortnight, and the IMDb rating has fallen to 7.3 during the same time span. And those scores include literally tens of thousands of pre-release perfect 10 votes from the fans. Both of those ratings also started out in the 90+% range and will likely drop further in the coming months. The IMDb 'top 1,000 voters' rating is currently 5.8/10.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2975590/ratings

Social media reactions are also a good indicator of the public response. Pro.boxoffice.com monitors Twitter posts for all major releases and calculates a positive/negative ratio to illustrate how much people like or dislike the film. A good ratio is 9:1 or higher. For example, here are the latest Twitter ratios for Zootopia:

Date   #         Tweets   Pos:Neg Ratio
Apr 06, 2016   7234     42:1
Apr 05, 2016   17317   37:1
Apr 04, 2016   20007   21:1

http://pro.boxoffice.com/statistics/movies/untitled-disney-animation-film-1-2016

Now here are the latest Twitter ratios for Batman v Superman:

Date   #         Tweets   Pos:Neg Ratio
Apr 06, 2016   24586   3:1
Apr 05, 2016   57603   5:1
Apr 04, 2016   75085   4:1

http://pro.boxoffice.com/statistics/movies/man-of-steel-2-2015

But for the best indicator of audience reaction, simply look at the box office results. Hype and presales guaranteed a huge opening, but the drops we've been seeing ever since reflect the poor word-of-mouth. Audiences weren't put off by the reviews – they flocked in droves to see the movie when it first came out. The problem is not many of them wanted to see it a second time.

So it's not only the critics who have a problem with the film. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice might be the most divisive comic book movie ever made. As far as this hostile attitude towards critics goes – saying they need to be "called out" for giving their honest opinions – that's precisely the kind of mentality that prompted Batman fans to send abusive messages to reviewers back in 2012. I don't think any of us want a repeat of that embarrassing occurrence, and I like to think the users on this site are above that sort of behaviour anyway.

[riddler]

It could end up with a smaller Chinese gross than Ant-Man (2015), the film Snyder dismissed as a "flavour of the month". China is currently the biggest overseas market. It's the key territory if a film wants to join the $1 billion club. Unfortunately BvS just didn't resonate with their audiences. It opened strong, but experienced a sharp OW Sat-Sun drop and lost over 70% of its screens to local releases by the end of its first week. It's also seen dramatic drops here in the UK and in several other key markets.

'Flavour of the month'?  Wow!  What a jerk...especially when Snyder's own film was barely flavour of the week. 

You know I hate having to take sides in the DC vs Marvel debates but my god there's a lot of trashing going from the DC side; Goyer throws stones at the MCU films, Nolan's cinemetographer criticized the action shots in the Avengers, now Snyder is piling on? Compare that to Stan Lee and Joss Whedon who do nothing but praise DC. I haven't seen anyone from the marvel camp fire shots at Man of Steel or BvS despite avenues to do so.

If we have to make comparisons, Ant-man is currently sitting at 7.4 on the IMDB to BvS 7.3 with the latter's rating dropping daily (I still havent seen Ant Man so I can't compare). I liked BvS but supporters need to find something better than slamming Marvel to properly defend their film.

[johnnygobbs]

You know I hate having to take sides in the DC vs Marvel debates but my god there's a lot of trashing going from the DC side; Goyer throws stones at the MCU films, Nolan's cinemetographer criticized the action shots in the Avengers, now Snyder is piling on? Compare that to Stan Lee and Joss Whedon who do nothing but praise DC. I haven't seen anyone from the marvel camp fire shots at Man of Steel or BvS despite avenues to do so.

If we have to make comparisons, Ant-man is currently sitting at 7.4 on the IMDB to BvS 7.3 with the latter's rating dropping daily (I still havent seen Ant Man so I can't compare). I liked BvS but supporters need to find something better than slamming Marvel to properly defend their film.

Conversely, I'm starting to feel bad for the fans of this film.  I've been slamming the film and, I can't deny, feeling a sense of vindication with respect to the response, particularly the elements that I felt would hurt the film the most (i.e. the characterisation of Lex and the Randian/borderline nihilistic tone that runs throughout many of Snyder and Goyer's films, not to mention the rumoured 'no jokes' memo the Warner Bros execs apparently issues with respect to the DCEU), however, I also know a lot of people, including various posters here, feel very strongly about this film, and see this version of Batman/Superman as their Batman/Superman, and I feel a little guilty for hating on the movie (even though I can't deny that I'd ideally like to see a reboot one day more in the vein of a live-action version of the 1990s animated series).

To go back to your point, I can sympathise with the frustration that the fans of these films must be feeling with respect to some of the adverse response, even though I do agree with BatmAngelus and Silver Nemesis, that the critics are being entirely genuine in their criticism (and as Silver Nemesis says, most of the reviews taken in isolation aren't terrible, just lukewarm).

[thecolorsblend]

Critics don't have agendas,

All due respect but that's simply not true. If nothing else, it's an open secret that critics look down their noses at mainstream Hollywood summer stuff and all but have quite the spring in their step when heading into a low budget indie film. Snyder is not a director with a ton of admirers among the critic community.

box office is dropping and not meeting expectations.

Whose expectations? The film's worldwide numbers are above $700 million, which both outgrosses MOS and more than accounts for the higher production cost of the movie. If WB (or anybody) "expected" a billion dollars, they were dreaming.

We can debate the merits of the actual movie all day, but the view that "Only the critics hated it, everyone else loved it" just doesn't line up with the facts anymore when articles and analyses like what Silver Nemesis and I posted are getting published every day.

Yes, it would be safe to say that BvS will not be remembered as universally popular among moviegoers. But I simply find it hard to believe a movie reaches this sort of box office figure worldwide without a very positive reception among vast swathes of wide audiences.

[The Laughing Fish]

Despite the drop in box office takings for BVS, WB has announced two more untitled DC movies, while bumping up Wonder Woman's release date:

Suicide Squad — 5 August 2016

Wonder Woman – 2 June 2017

Justice League Part One – 17 November 2017

The Flash – 23 March 2018

Aquaman – 27 July 2018

Untitled DC Film — 5 October 2018

Shazam – 5 April 2019

Justice League Part Two – 14 June 2019

Untitled DC Film — 1 November 2019

Cyborg – 3 April 2020

Green Lantern Corps – 19 June 2020

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/batman-vs-superman-warner-bros-2-untitled-dc-films-suicide-squad-wonder-woman-a6972336.html

I don't understand what to make of this. Does this mean they're happy (if still underwhelmed) by the film's box office performance as of now?

***EDIT*** I didn't catch this closing paragraph in this article:

Meanwhile, Batman v Superman is failing to show it has legs at the box-office. Although it has passed $700 million globally, the second-weekend drop-off was at a substantial enough level for analysts to believe the overall gross could be $900 million, just short of the $925 million it needs to break even.

What's the worst case scenario if the film doesn't meet that break even point?

[riddler]

The budget was $250 million, it will end up with 3-4 times that amount once it leaves theatres. Say what you like about the film itself but it was a worthwhile business investment. The billion dollars was a best case scenario, it is still very profitable and WB would be best served fixing it's shortcomings going forward than rebooting and starting over AGAIN especially when there are some aspects which everyone agrees they did get ight (Affleck, Cavill, Irons). 

[johnnygobbs]

The budget was $250 million, it will end up with 3-4 times that amount once it leaves theatres. Say what you like about the film itself but it was a worthwhile business investment. The billion dollars was a best case scenario, it is still very profitable and WB would be best served fixing it's shortcomings going forward than rebooting and starting over AGAIN especially when there are some aspects which everyone agrees they did get ight (Affleck, Cavill, Irons).

That doesn't take into account marketing costs, and some observers have speculated that $250 million is at the lowest end of its possible budget estimate, and that the real budget is closer to something like $400 million.

As for proceeding with a franchise that is riddled with shortcomings, it's a risky strategy because it means that whatever films are released from now on will be tarnished by association with BvS.  Look at Spider-Man 3, the biggest domestic box-office hit of 2007...Sony didn't make a sequel and in fact rebooted the franchise a mere five years later (by the way, SM3 has a 63% 'fresh' rating at Rotten Tomatoes... ).

[BatmAngelus]

Critics don't have agendas,

All due respect but that's simply not true. If nothing else, it's an open secret that critics look down their noses at mainstream Hollywood summer stuff and all but have quite the spring in their step when heading into a low budget indie film. Snyder is not a director with a ton of admirers among the critic community.

Sure, critics rate indie films higher than Hollywood blockbusters. That bias doesn't translate to "agenda against BvS" to me when they've been more favorable to past superhero movies, Batman movies, Superman movies, and Snyder movies. Obviously, there are exceptions to each category, but my point is, I don't see how critics wrote bad reviews to target and "take down" this film (or 'cause they took bribes from Disney/Marvel like I've read fans on other sites claim). They wrote them 'cause they didn't like the movie.

box office is dropping and not meeting expectations.

Whose expectations? The film's worldwide numbers are above $700 million, which both outgrosses MOS and more than accounts for the higher production cost of the movie. If WB (or anybody) "expected" a billion dollars, they were dreaming.

Is it really dreaming though? The last two Batman movies scored over a billion. Same with both Avengers & Iron Man 3,  and if we're not counting superhero movies, franchise films like Jurassic World, Furious 7, and Star Wars: TFA all grossed that much last year. Surely a film with the three most iconic superheroes in the same movie, released without much competition, would be expected to make a killing. As Laughing Fish posted, they haven't broken even yet.