Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

[Ezee E]

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.7623...8i4000!6m1!1e1

Sweet looking place.

[Irish]

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice had quite the weekend — not only did it break the March opening record previously held by The Hunger Games, but with $424 million worldwide, Zack Snyder’s epic now boasts the highest opening weekend for a Warner Bros. superhero movie. All those negative reviews predictably had zero effect on audiences, who flocked to see the long-awaited showdown between the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel.

Batman v Superman brought in $170.1 million at the U.S. box office, giving it the biggest March opening weekend of all time. The Hunger Games previously held the record with its $152.5 million when it opened back in March 2012. But that’s not the only record Snyder’s film broke — with the widest pre-summer release on record, Batman v Superman also had the biggest pre-summer opening (another record that belonged to The Hunger Games), the biggest Easter weekend opening (besting Furious 7), and the biggest superhero movie opening for Warner Bros. (previously held by The Dark Knight Rises).

http://screencrush.com/batman-vs-sup...ffice-records/

[Skitch]

BATMAN.

[Milky Joe]

Those negative reviews had the opposite effect. Duh.

[[ETM]]

I had already paid for tickets. I'm doing everything now to persuade people not to see for themselves how bad it is, because it's the wrong kind of bad.

[Watashi]

It had a 40% drop on Saturday. WB can gloat about opening weekend because everyone knew that it would make a lot of money those first few days. The film will struggle to beat Deadpool's domestic gross. WB should be embarrassed about that.

[Henry Gale]

I just can't believe they still plan on releasing a Cyborg movie four years from now, after both Justice League parts. We got a shitty but succinct enough version of his origin here (once again, in those computer screen scenes!).

[DavidSeven]

Cool, so Snyder will keep getting to ride the coattails of other people's IP then.

[Irish]

It had a 40% drop on Saturday. WB can gloat about opening weekend because everyone knew that it would make a lot of money those first few days. The film will struggle to beat Deadpool's domestic gross. WB should be embarrassed about that.

Back of the napkin math suggests your prediction is wrong.

If we assume a 50% drop week over week and totally ignore the weekday numbers, BvS still comes away with $337 million domestic after 6 weeks. That's within spitting distance of Deadpool's current $345MM domestic after 6.4 weeks.

Granted, that's not good because BvS cost a rumored $400MM and Deadpool's production budget was like $5.50, a stick of gum, and old pocket lint.

Cool, so Snyder will keep getting to ride the coattails of other people's IP then.

This strikes me as an odd thing to say considering that Match Cut favorites like Nolan, Nolan's Kid Brother, Johnson, Whedon, the other Whedon, Not-French Goddard, and Black have all had their careers established or revived by "other people's IP."

To cherry pick an example: Goddard has 7 feature writing credits. Only 2 of them were original (Cabin in the Woods and Cloverfield). Everything else was a corporate work for hire gig. His last 3 projects were Daredevil, Sinister Six, and Robopocalypse.

We might like Goddard better than Snyder but we can't pretend they have dissimilar career paths.

[Henry Gale]

This strikes me as an odd thing to say considering that Match Cut favorites like Nolan, Nolan's Kid Brother, Johnson, Whedon, the other Whedon, Not-French Goddard, and Black have all had their careers established or revived by "other people's IP."

To cherry pick an example: Goddard has 7 feature writing credits. Only 2 of them were original (Cabin in the Woods and Cloverfield). Everything else was a corporate work for hire gig. His last 3 projects were Daredevil, Sinister Six, and Robopocalypse.

We might like Goddard better than Snyder but we can't pretend they have dissimilar career paths.

I mean, I see this point.. to a point. (To correct the bolded bit, you named two projects that never materialized, and left out that he wrote and became Oscar-nominated for The Martian, which hopefully lends him some clout for whatever he might want to do next.) But I feel like Seven mainly meant frustration towards Snyder being the person to be allowed to get credit for movies with this brand and set of ingredients being enough for audiences to turn up regardless of their now-proven quality (of the inferior type). Everything in terms of how MoS and BvS were sold are so indebted to Nolan, his name was actually all over the marketing for the former, and for this, it's like they didn't have to do anything but have Batman in the title for people to triumph financially based on the carried-over goodwill of the past trilogy. (They did test that with the weird outrage for Affleck's casting, though.)

But in the end, Snyder has tackled only one original idea in his whole directorial career (something that can't be said for anyone else you listed). It was Sucker Punch. It bombed, both critically and commercially (only six months after his previous lowest grosser, Legend of the Guardians), and as punishment, he was tasked with creative control of almost all of DC's prominent heroes for this cinematic era.

I sure hope he learns his lesson once he's done counting all this money.

[Mr. McGibblets]

This strikes me as an odd thing to say considering that Match Cut favorites like Nolan, Nolan's Kid Brother, Johnson, Whedon, the other Whedon, Not-French Goddard, and Black have all had their careers established or revived by "other people's IP."

Chris Nolan's career was established by Memento and it never needed to be revived. The Prestige was technically someone else's IP, but other than that and the Batman films, all his successes have been original. Joss Whedon created 4 of his own series before having anything to do with Marvel films. Goddard does most of his work on other people's IP, but the only film he's directed is an original. Shane Black has like 8 movies to his name, 7 of which are original. If that's Rian Johnson, all of his films are originals.

[number8]

Wow, they're marketing the director's cut already? It's been 3 days.

[number8]

Heh.

I’m so utterly unconcerned with the outcome of that fight. So profoundly, utterly unconcerned. I can’t even come up with a fake answer. I guess I have to root for Superman because he killed me, so I would hope that he would continue his killing spree and become like a serial killer Superman. That’s a new take on Superman. We’d all be in a heap of trouble if Superman was a serial killer. He could just wipe us all out. But then he’d be lonely.

[Dukefrukem]

I was just about to post that. They already have a release date. july 16th.

[Dukefrukem]

BTW, that scene would be pretty cool to see in the theatrical cut. I'm assuming that's a God of some kind.

People are saying it's Steppenwolf. BUt I think it's gonna be more Highfather-like. Or even a minion like Kalibak.

Thoughts?

[number8]

It's Darkseid's dad.

[Milky Joe]

Can't wait.

[Dukefrukem]

It's Darkseid's dad.

Makes sense.

[DavidSeven]

My point isn't that Snyder chose to work in the domain of others' intellectual property. If that's all he (or anyone else) wants to do, then more power to him (or them).

My point is that he's built a reputation for "making money" exclusively by standing on the shoulders of hot properties. The other filmmakers you've cited have dabbled in original and derivative works, gotten great reviews, brought prestige to their studios, etc. Snyder's lone virtue, considering his history of middling reviews, is the ability to make a buck, but he's only been able to do that by falling into this crazy loop where the underlying IP keeps making the money for him.

I don't think this whole established/revived debate really touches on the original point I was making with my half-assed joke.

[Irish]

All fair points-- and I wouldn't try to defend Snyder on aesthetic grounds, for obvious reasons.

Goyer and Abrams (to cherry pick 2 more names) are just as opportunistic as Snyder, but we don't disdain them as much. I find that interesting and wanted to tease out a little discussion about it.

Didn't mean to step on your joke!

[Winston*]

I don't think 300 would have been as big a hit as it was without Snyder's direction.

[Ezee E]

I don't think 300 would have been as big a hit as it was without Snyder's direction.

Agreed. At that time, those visuals were absolutely amazing to see.

[megladon8]

I think Snyder can create a very striking image. His visual style is definitely strong - not top tier, but he can create striking visuals for sure.

His problems lie in actual storytelling.

[Skitch]

I think Snyder can create a very striking image. His visual style is definitely strong - not top tier, but he can create striking visuals for sure.

His problems lie in actual storytelling.

This has always been true.

[Wryan]