$228M domestic on a film that cost $300M to make, before distribution and marketing, and which was intended to be a holiday tent-pole blockbuster? That’s not respectable, that’s an unmitigated disaster.
Justice League made $658M worldwide. It was supposed to be the capstone of the DCEU to that point, the culmination of all the previous films, the Big Amazing Thing the studio had been building towards for five years. It made less money than any other DCEU film. Adjusted for inflation, it made less than Doctor Strange, or Thor: Dark World, or Big Hero 6, or Deadpool 2, and it made less than half of what The Avengers made, which is the thing they were chasing with it. JL has a lower Metacritic score than any of those films. It has a lower Metacritic score than Batman Forever.
JL was a bad film generally, a bad superhero film specifically. Critics panned it, far fewer moviegoers saw it than the studio needed to restore confidence in the brand, and it was a box office catastrophe given the role it was supposed to play in furthering interest and excitement in its larger shared universe.
And, to the point at hand, all of that matters for this film. Have previous comic and cartoon versions of Aquaman actually been decent? Sure, maybe? So what? The majority of the intended film audience doesn’t know anything about that, and the one thing the creators of the DCEU have clearly demonstrated over and over (Wonder Woman excepted) is that they fundamentally misunderstand what makes their characters compelling, so that none of those compelling qualities actually make it to the screen.
What potential filmgoers know about this film and should basing an opinion on does not include previous comic/animated versions of the character, because we have no reason to believe the film makers care about or understand them. The only information we have to go on is:
- this trailer
- the character’s portrayal in Justice League (MY MAN!)
- the abysmal track record of the DCEU
Of those, this trailer is the least bad, but it ain’t great. It certainly doesn’t give me any confidence this film won’t also suck, and it doesn’t make me want to see it more than I did before the trailer.
Compare this to the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer: I knew nothing about those characters, had never heard of that comic, but the success of the MCU to that point and that trailer made GotG an instant must-see. This trailer and the failure of the DCEU thus far means I’m far more excited for a two hour Queen music video.
