Warner Bros. spent an incredible amount of money to make ‘Justice League’, & was depending largely on comic book stans to make the movie profitable.
Variety is reporting, although the movie did relatively well with a $96 million opening weekend; it still fell well short of it’s lofty expectations:
It’s a decidedly gloomy result for the tentpole, which had been forecast by the studio just prior to the weekend to open in the $110 million range. Instead, “Justice League” is launching with only the eighth largest opening of 2017. It’s not even in the top 50 domestic openings of all time, ranking 53rd behind “Fast and Furious 6.”
“For every macro budget superhero movie the stakes are incredibly high and with that comes an enormous pressure to exceed all expectations and for DC, this has never been more true,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst with comScore. “In the wake of the much-needed home run that was ‘Wonder Woman,’ the momentum was with the brand and great expectations placed on the very broad shoulders of ‘Justice League’ to keep that train moving.”
Less people are going to the movies these days overall, which was probably underestimated; but this is still pretty sour news for Warner Bros.
I’m sure they’ll be fine though.