itt: consternation and wailing about Zach Snyder's upcoming SUPERMAN/BATMAN film/sequel to MAN OF STEEL -- official title: BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE

I enjoyed this take on the Punisher movie:

http://www.moviefighterscast.com/?p=226

Where they take very vocal delight at the film's ninjas with Uzis entering the scene on slides

Oh, another note on the Burton Batman: it was playing on about half as many screens as BvS currently is.

4 screens (I think) in Boston this week. Crazy.

It's not as bad as it seems. Because the box office was so frontloaded for the first week it just seems a lot worse than it is - it has already made 296M domestically on a 250M budget, and international sales (currently 486M) should cover the ad budget + profit before video sales even kick in. I don't think this is enough to kill the DC agenda.
Still, it doesn't look great for a Snyder-helmed Superman 3, which I'm sure everyone here would be happy not to see.

This is an interesting comparison to Avengers 2, Iron Man 3 and DKR:
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/showdowns/chart/?view=basic&id=superherosmackdown.htm

don't think anybody was suggesting this was a 'disaster' at the box office, just that the talks of it being a blockbuster of a record-setting variety was premature.

also if you look deeper at the numbers in yr link - ie, the daily box office tab, you will notice that the film is neck and neck with the other three superhero films it is compared with the entire first week....until the second weekend, where it is significantly lower than all of the competitors, including 11 million less than Avengers on the second Saturday.

Its average gross per theatre is also significantly lower, starting with the second weekend.

Basically it's a solid performing film that unfortunately can't lay claim to being one of the most financially successful superhero films of all time like Snyder and co initially thought.

Ha, BvS's worldwide gross still isn't even as high as Iron Man 3's foreign gross alone, and it's still miles away from Age of Ultron's foreign gross. I believe that WB's projections were that this should've done Avengers-level business and it's nowhere close. No death for the DC movieverse but I expect it'll lose a few limbs.

The biggest issue isn't whether the movie itself was a blockbuster or not but rather whether a studio can justify like ten follow-ups to a film that didn't perform nearly as well as they'd hoped.

xxpost so while yes, the box office was frontloaded which did impact the magnitude of the drop the second weekend, I don't give it the same weight you do.

AFter all, Avengers 2 managed to do better than BvS domestically in Week 2, and then brought in 26 million more than BvS did in its second week. and it looks like about $15 million more in its 3rd week, when the numbers are all finally in.

"domestically in Week 1"

If Suicide Squad dries on the vine, I would not be surprised if Wonder Woman (which I believe is the only one of the follow-ups currently in production) is the last DC movie we see for a while.

also, that chart you provided is comparing BvS to the latest entries in both the Dark Knight, Iron Man, and Avengers series.

however keep in mind, The Avengers and The Dark Knight are the top dogs (domestically speaking only) in the superhero field. and its not even close to those movies.

The gap will definitely widen as the times goes on. no doubt this is a disappointment for WB - but my point is that it's not exactly a bomb, which is what the general reaction here and across the internet. Hardcore Henry is a bomb.

Who ITT has called the film a bomb

xpost Based on some estimates of production budget + marketing budget, SvB may only just now be recouping its costs after three weeks. Looks like Hardcore Henry got three-quarters of the way there after a single weekend.

A movie like HH probably spent like tens of millions (many times its production budget) on advertising though, given all the TV/theatrical/internet ads I've seen for it. It also got a noted crazy $10M distribution deal at the Toronto Film Festival, but I suspect it will recoup after video anyway. (Wasn't the whole movie shot on GoPros or something?) I still plan to catch a matinee out of curiosity.

BvS will have millions in profit at the end of the day, though like I said, still a disappointment for WB especially given it's their biggest non-Harry Potter properties and it should've done as well as Avengers and DKR and it won't.

Calling it now : "Suicide Squad" will be a big fail as well.

feel like suicide squad is already laboring under the huge minus of parents being less likely to take their kids or let them go. i mean, it sounds dumb, but that's gotta be a factor, right? a lot of these you just automatically take the kids, kids love superheroes. but "suicide squad"? i know my mom for one would not have been down with that when i was 10 or w/e.

Margot Robbie's ass woulda been a dealbreaker as far as my mother was concerned

but then again she didn't even want me to see Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey (not cos of butts tho)

Justice League Part I is currently in production, isn't it?

they'll probably merge like 3-4 movies into 1 after this setback and characters are just gonna be showing up on screen every ten seconds and there will be like one of those Opera subtitle thingamabobbers to display footnotes for the audience who aren't comic-bookies (ie me) to tell you who each person is and why they're on screen.

I don't think Suicide Squad will tank quite so heavy as the guy doing it has a much more stable head upon his shoulders, and the film is trying to do a very different thing(presumably not some dour, dire, 3-hour chunk of fascist nihilism told with characters popularly envisioned as the complete opposite of that).

Plus they are not going to dump an additional $400M into the marketing budget.

My take on this is that I don't really want WB/DC to fail per se, but I'd be quite happy if they yanked Snyder(& his screenwriters) out of there and exiled them to some other pop-cultural corner to adapt some other bit of pre-approved IP.

Tho I can't say I wasn't hoping a little that part of this would fail due to the clueless hubristic arrogance of the entire venture, where the studio heads were doing what Snyder did on a smaller scale, which was deliberately shortcutting the entire process of establishing a plausible world.

Snyder just grabbed random shit from a coupla storylines he thought looked cool from the most superficial, tangible level only, and had no idea how that worked and no desire to go into why or establish. Frank Miller's TDKR only worked because it was after 30+ years of the Justice League existing before everything went dystopic and dissolving so that Superman was just the last one happily doing Future Reagan's bidding. Similarly, Death of Superman came after decades of Superman being this beloved, indestructible hero to Metropolis.

It takes time to set all this shit up, with decades of comics in our time setting the stage for the modern approach Marvel began building over the course of years with relatively smaller films before swinging for the billion-dollar fences. Marvel had Jon Favreau do a flick about b-tier hero with a faded, almost b-tier star. They gave Joe Johnston enough money to finally do a proper WWII dieselpunk film setting up Capt America. Kenneth Branaugh getting hired to do a LOTR film. These were bigger budget blockbuster attempts(at around $130-180M), but each successful enough to continue.

But fuck all that, we've got to get on with these. Hotshot this shit with one movie(sorta) and it will all work out, won't it?

Can easily see the dumping the Aquaman (lol), Flash, and Cyborg movies if Suicide Squad doesn't pan out. But just as possibly not, since they're all supposed to be brighter, more standard family fare (though that Cyborg cameo in BvS was rather gruesome). Have ANY of the DC movies actually gone down this route since Clooney Bats?

I don't root for the failure of the properties. I just want them to be in better hands. WB and current DC editorial have no idea what they have or what to do with them and it's just sad to watch them flail.

I was gonna say the comics themselves have been just as misdirected the past few years. I don't know really know how competent Kevin Feige is but he looks like a genius compared to these guys

One of the side effect of wanting to make movies with long-established and beloved nerdshit IP and deliberately ejecting all continuity is that the filmmakers don't follow thru with that part, and want it both ways. There's no establishing the import of this stuff in the actual film, just the filmmakers relying on audience knowledge and metatextual info. Why establish who Khan Noonien Singh is? Just chuck him in your movie and emphasize a dramatic reveal that does nothing for the actual characters in the story you claim you're telling?

I was never as big a fan of DC as I am of Marvel but I always bought at least a few of their titles. But all I've bought in recent years was whatever Morrison stuff they've put out and reprints of older (read: better) material. I know they've put out a handful of books that got some acclaim but they never last long and the rest look like garbage.

I _like_ Ostrander/Yale's Suicide Squad and I like the fact that this was the first team book they decided to go with, even if it's the sorta bullshit nu52 mutation with stripper clowns and body-normalized Waller. I'm curious what the film will be and plan to go if the reception by pop-cultural gatekeepers I trust(critical/on here/online) gives it the thumbs up.

But all I've bought in recent years was whatever Morrison stuff they've put out and reprints of older (read: better) material

Yeah, there's no way in hell that all the Deadshot/Sinister Six/Suicide Squad runs would be getting reprinted without the movie coming.

I just found out there was a 2002 Akiva Goldsman version of BvS.

http://www.denofgeek.us/movies/batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice/254103/the-batman-v-superman-we-never-saw-might-be-better-than-the-one-we-did

"the logic of Lex Luthor’s plan to (I shit you not, this is what happens) resurrect the Joker so he could hire a woman for Bruce to marry in order for him to kill her, and play Superman and Batman against each other"

Was listening to a podcast about law in the superhero world and two lawyers said that Marvel and DC have joint ownership of the word "superhero" as a product trademark and they selectively use it to stop others from using it. Depressing.
And something about Marvel screwing over a guy who was involved with their webshooter toy.

what podcast was it? sounds interesting.

It's mostly about how law would operate within a superhero world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvQS4JDlYeM

The Jungle Book - $103,567,000
Barbershop: The Next Cut - $20,210,000
The Boss - $10,170,000
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - $9,010,000
Zootopia - $8,235,000

2 screens in Boston. :|

http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/image/upload/c_limit,h_776,w_640/t_mp_quality/5-times-batman-just-straight-up-murdered-someone-999a7596-ab73-4290-a9ac-f558cb647cd1-png-211772.jpg

i'm not a physician, but i feel like fucking on a filthy, rain-soaked jetty probably puts you on the fast-track to developing a really nasty uti at the very least

Nor are you the goddamn batman, so your opinion can be safely discarded. Or unsafely!

http://www.i-mockery.com/comics/longbox7/

Turns out that bit is from the batshit Frank Miller/Jim Lee "All Star Batman & Robin" series from a few years back, which I believe was never completed

imagine being one of the goons batman knocked out, groggily regaining consciousness to be greeted by the sight of furiously pumping bat-buttocks. what's you next move? do you play possum, run off, take a shot at batman while he's otherwise engaged?

I am SHOCKED. This is SHOCKING.

The 'Flash' Movie Loses Its Director

At least we can rest comfortably at night, safe in the knowledge that there won't be any more hiccups on the road to DC's glorious cinematic future.

Grahame-Smith, the author and screenwriter of such works as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, was to have made his directorial debut on the project

that's a helluva résumé - what a disaster for the dc universe

When your artistic vision fails to meet the standards of the man who directed Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter...

imo All Star Batman & Robin is good because it jettisons the premise that they're doing anything other than ridiculous grim and gritty trash and really goes for it

i'd enjoy it more if i could shake the lingering suspicion that frank miller is taking it all deadly seriously

By the time they got to the issue where Batman paints and entire house and his costume in gold to piss off Green Lantern, I was disabused of that notion

it is ok to laugh at Frank Miller and not with him, I give you permission

also, lol, I forgot that green lantern bit

OMG you guys: 'According to multiple, reliable sources James Wan is feeling a tremendous amount of trepidation about Aquaman.'

i know how he feels tbh