‘Justice League’ Encounters Kryptonite At The B.O. With $93M+ Opening: Why The DC Movie Weakened

Writethru of 2ND UPDATE, Friday night: Justice League‘s Friday, coming off a solid $13 million Thursday, is landing at the high end of its midday estimate with $38.4M, however, Warner Bros./DC’s superhero ensemble is falling well short of $100M with an industry estimate of $93.5M over three-days, quite far from tracking’s $110M-$120M projection.

This event movie at a reported estimated production cost of $300M was ten years in the making, and was intended to be the pinnacle for the Warner Bros./DC universe introducing new characters such as The Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman who could hold their own franchise weight with their own solo outings. But an opening that’s 44% lower than Batman v. Superman‘s $166M opening? Ouch.

On a bit of an upside, audiences seem to be enjoying Justice League more than critics’ 39% Rotten Tomatoes score: CinemaScore crowds gave Justice League a B+, the same as Suicide Squad and an improvement on BvS‘s ‘B’. CinemaScore’s audience sentiment jives with what PostTrak saw on Thursday night with a four-out-of-five star score, 85% overall positive and high 69% definite recommend. Females (42%) liked Justice League more than men (58%), giving it an A- to their B+. Under 25 (31%) gave the super friends movie an A-. Man, if they could only show up en masse now.

Surely anything under $100M isn’t making Warner Bros brass happy: This is DC’s Avengers. It’s the zenith of their comic book movie universe. Should Justice League find an extra set of super powers this weekend, and re-power to $100M, it’s still hard to jump up and down since Justice League before P&A cost double what Wonder Woman did ($149M) with the Joss Whedon reshoots, etc.

Last time with BvS, fanboys and critics dinged that movie for Zack Snyder’s less meat, no filling visualist style coupled with that pic’s moody tone and tiresome running time. After the tepid response to BvS (the movie was profitable at $105M+), why did Warner Bros. have Snyder and the pic’s screenwriter Chris Terrio go through the motions all over again on Justice League? Warner Bros. brass fielded some of fans’ concerns: Justice League is shorter at two hours (to BvS’ 2 1/2 hour run time) and has more humor thanks to The Flash and Aquaman due to Avengers helmer Joss Whedon stepping in for Snyder after the director had to step away due to an unfortunate tragedy. Despite the promise that Whedon might bring, there was no way he could reshoot the entire movie. As one rival studio executive told Deadline, “I’ve never heard of a director completely changing the DNA of a movie when he’s called in for reshoots. That’s inherent in the script from the onset.”

Deadline’s Pete Hammond griped in his film review that Justice League “ranks as a setback for the genre after three previous winners this year: Wonder Woman, Spider-Man: Homecoming and the current Thor: Ragnarok.” And more to that point on those titles in regards to their critical and commercial successes, there’s a lot to be said about respectively enlisting the visions of independent directors Patty Jenkins, Jon Watts, Taika Waititi (and let’s not forget Troma Entertainment vet James Gunn on the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise) when it comes to superhero movies. “The independent directors and writers are better at creating sympathetic characters. It’s like Jon Favreau working on the first Iron Man: It was grounded in a reality. Despite the fact that it’s superhero movie, if you can identify with the characters on a realistic level, it’s going to work,” explained one film packager who gave praise to former Warner Bros. Pictures Group president Jeff Robinov as an executive who “empowered great filmmakers and safely micromanaged the process” thus yielding such successes as Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight $2.45 billion-grossing DC trilogy. Going forward Warner Bros. is entrusting its DC franchise to such directors like The Conjuring‘s James Wan with Aquaman, Annabelle: Creation‘s David F. Sandberg on Shazam! and War for the Planet of the Apes’ Matt Reeves on The Batman, and of course, Jenkins returning for Wonder Woman 2.

There is also something to be said about putting a DC film that’s so lackluster in quality within close proximity to a platinum reviewed and well received Marvel movie on the calendar. We’re of course talking about Disney/Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok: The Waititi-directed movie is cutting into Justice League‘s business with a three-day of $21M in third place. That’s fanboy cash which could have gone to Justice League if the film wasn’t so damn close to the Thor threequel. Again, these dating decisions are made years in advance and as you close in on your date, it’s a challenge to move. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Wonder Woman were spaced out by a month, and the former didn’t step on the latter. The last occurrence of a DC film following closely in the wake of a Marvel title occurred in July 2012: Sony’s Amazing Spider-Man opened on a Monday due to the July 4th holiday falling on a Tuesday with Warner’s Dark Knight Rises debuting 17 days later. Comparing their first seven days, Spidey made $137M to Dark Knight Rises’ $225M. The Nolan movie was the more beloved film critically and CinemaScore wise, notched an A to Spidey‘s A-. Hence, Dark Knight Rises’ business wasn’t slowed because it was the more premium of the two superhero releases. Unfortunately, that’s not the case this time around with Justice League.

Lastly, the Rotten Tomatoes score maneuvers with Justice League arguably backfired. Rotten Tomatoes has a new Siskel-Ebert-like Facebook show See It/Skip It whereby they exclusively reveal a wide release’s RT score before it hits their website. This delayed Justice League‘s RT rating until late night Thursday. That scenario is a studio’s dream: Delay your RT score as late as possible so it doesn’t impact your tracking and deep-six your advance ticket sales (and major studios’ research shows evidence of this continually). However, the whole Justice League stunt was reported on by the press as some sort of cover-up by Warner Bros, and some sources believe that could have contributed to even more film reviewers being unnecessarily cynical about Justice League. Rotten Tomatoes has put it out there that it’s part of the show’s m.o. to publish scores on See it/Skip it 12 hours after its airing. Warner Bros. has nothing to do with that. delay. This is a new show and some other movie will be in the same scenario like Justice League week after week.

I hear from credible financial sources who have sharp knowledge of Justice League‘s budget that if the film clears $700M-$750M global, after ancillaries, it will turn a profit, but not much. Overseas including China is currently at $42.4M through Thursday.

Also, realize that the Gal Gadot quotient could be slow to show up to Justice League. Older women were there for Wonder Woman during opening weekend, with PostTrak showing females 25+ (37%), followed by guys over 25 (34%), females under 25 (17%), and men under 25 (12%). However, the share of women grew over time for Wonder Woman. Gadot’s Wonder Woman does have her moments in the movie. For Justice League Thursday night, PostTrak showed men over 25 in bulk (41%), men under 25 (25%), females over 25 (21%) and females under 25 (14%).

Lionsgate’s Wonder is truly the wonder of the weekend, besting its $9M-$14M tracking with a $27.3M industry estimated weekend after a $9.4M Friday. Fandango called this one: They saw the exorbitant pre-sales from school groups and knew Lionsgate had something special here. Wonder earns an amazing A+ tonight (and we know how rare those are in CinemaScore) with a 70% female audience and 65% over the age of 25. Made for a reported production cost in the low $20M, financed by Lionsgate, Participant Media, Walden Media and TIK Films in China, this Stephen Chbosky-directed movie is looking to be the sleeper of the holiday season.

Entertainment social media analytics firm RelishMix is impressed by the 101M-plus social media universe built up for Wonder across Twitter, YouTube views, Instagram and Facebook. Overall, heading into the weekend, the social chatter was positive, spurred by fans of the book. “The movie is speaking to parents who have children with any number of physical and/or developmental challenges…There is a lot of heartfelt discussion of how the video materials have been speaking to families and it’s legitimately touching,” reports RelishMix.

“Those who have read it and school children who are currently reading it are all looking forward to seeing the film version. In fact, many school kids are excitedly sharing that their class is going to see Wonder as a field trip,” adds RelishMix.

Sony Affirm’s $20M-budgeted animated title The Star, co-financed with Walden Media is coming in at the high end of the $8M-$9M range we saw on midday Friday with $9.1M. Walden Media squawked when Sony dated The Star on the same date as Walden’s Wonder; they feared one film would cannibalize the other’s mom-led audience (which is happening). Sony Affirm went after the faith-based crowd and is praying for a huge multiple through the holiday (they could conceivably be at $20M by the Sunday after Thanksgiving). The Star received an ‘A’ CinemaScore, which clearly indicates that the faith-based showed up tonight. It’s a challenge to comp to the movie as there’s been so few Biblical animated movies. The last faith-based animated titles which come to mind are 2002’s Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie ($6.2M opening at 940 theaters, $25.6M domestic take) and its 2008 counterpart The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything ($4.3M at 1,337 sites, $13M final domestic).

On the specialty side A24’s ever-powerful Lady Bird climbs to No. 8 with a $10K per theater and $2.4M weekend at 238 sites. Fox Searchlight’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri also pegs to the No. 9 spot with a $901K second FSS. Sony’s Denzel Washington attorney pic from Dan Gilroy, Roman J. Israel, Esq. isn’t doing so hot at the ArcLight Hollywood, AMC Century City, AMC Lincoln Square NY, Regal Union Square NY with a low per theater of $14K. Critics are split at 55% Rotten which doesn’t help this sophisticated adult feature. Pic premiered at TIFF and cost $22M before P&A. There were multiple financiers including MACRO, Topic, Cross Creek Pictures, Bron, The Culture China, Image Nation and the Abu Dhabi Content Fund. Roman J. Israel, Esq. breaks wide on Wednesday.

Industry estimates as of Friday night for the weekend of Nov. 17-19:

1.) Justice League (WB), 4,051 theaters / $38.4M Fri. (includes $13M previews) / 3-day cume: $93.5M / Wk 1

2.) Wonder (WB), 3,096 theaters / $9.4M Fri. (includes $740K previews) / 3-day cume: $27.3M / Wk 1

3). Thor: Ragnarok (DIS), 4,080 theaters / $5.9M Fri. (-69%) / 3-day cume: $21M (-68%) / Total cume: $246.6M / Wk 3

4.) Murder on the Orient Express (FOX), 3,354 theaters (+13)/ $4M Fri. (-63%) / 3-day cume: $14.3M (-50%)/Total: $52.2M/ Wk 2

5.) Daddy’s Home 2 (PAR), 3,575 theaters (0) / $3.9M Fri. (-64%) / 3-day cume: $13.5M (-54%)/ Total: $49.3M/Wk 2

6.)The Star (SONY), 2,837 theaters / $2.7M Fri. (studio did not report previews) / 3-day cume: $9.1M / Wk 1

7). A Bad Moms Christmas (STX), 2,948 theaters (-667) / $2.3M Fri. (-43%)/ 3-day cume: $7.3M (-36%) / Total cume: $51.3M / Wk 3

8). Lady Bird (A24), 238 theaters (+201) / $740K Fri. (-%) / 3-day cume: $2.4M (+100%)/ Per screen: $10K / Total cume: $4.6M / Wk 3

9.) Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, MO (FSL), 53 theaters (+49) / $283K Fri. (+175%) / 3-day cume: $901K (+180%) / Per screen average: $17K /Total: $1.3M Wk 2

10). Jigsaw (LG), 1,201 theaters (-1,450) / $286K Fri. (-75%) / 3-day cume: $885K (-74%) / Total cume: $36.3M / Wk 4

Roman J. Israel, Esq. (SONY), 4 theaters / $18K Fri. /PTA: $14K/ 3-day cume: $56K / Wk 1