Is this a problem?
Is the rest of the world not allowed to enjoy things Americans don’t?
Or are international movie conglomerates not allowed to factor in the international market?
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That whooshing sound is the point racing over your head while you worry so much about why people dislike Aquaman.
It’s generally considered a bad sign regards quality. International returns are the primary reason they keep making transformer movies as an example. They’re ridiculously popular in Asia so they remain profitable while attendance in the Us and the west have steadily dropped off.
It’s also pretty deceptive. Because international box office is every country but the US. The film doesn’t have to have done particularly well in any given market to generate a big number. And some of those markets (think China) are so big that a pretty small percentage of the population can turn up and still generate large ticket sales. So a high, or higher international box office doesn’t neccisarily mean broad popularity in any one market.
China is is the key international market because of its raw size and how it’s population is rapidly getting more affluent. And successful American movies in the Chinese market seldom crack the top 10 movies.
With the DCEU flicks specifically the international box office doesn’t appear to be enough to make them profitable (except Wonder Woman). Justice League made $650m globally. The published budget was $300m. That’s not a successful movies breakdown to begin with. But when you factor in that the movie may have actually cost over $600m between marketing, reshoots and the like it looks even worse. Reports are that it lost WB at least $100m.
Their biggest box office was Batman v Superman: Grouch Monster Murders Jesus at $870m. International receipts were nearly double the US box office. Had a published budget of around $400m. But again marketing reshoots and other expenses the movie probably cost well over half a billion to put out. So it’s been reported that the movie barely broke even if at all.
And since these movies haven’t generated expected merchandising and ancillary sales. There’s not nearly the additional income to offset that. Film after film loosing some money, or barely making money.
Compare that to undeniably popular franchises. Star Wars (until Solo) was basically printing a billion dollars with every film. With lower budgets and less marketing expense. Without the Asian market, as Star Wars has traditionally been quite unpopular in Asia. The Marvel flicks have produced multiple billion dollar moves, are apparently ridiculously popular in China. To the point the point that Marvel/Disney has altered plots to satisfy Chinese censors.
So these films aren’t making money. Even internationally. If they were broadly popular outside the US, or were gaining traction there. You’d expect them to be altering to target that audience. There doesn’t appear to be a single market you can point to where they are particularly popular. And they’re breaking even, ish, in markets where the major language is not English. Which would indicate it’s a spectacle based asses in seats situation.
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Some people apparently believe that international profits aren’t very meaningful, which would be quite a surprise for studios like Disney, Pixar, and Fox.
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Apparently movies should only be made and are only worth anyone’s time and energy if A) 'Muricans like them and B) They make a billion dollars or more.
Otherwise, fuck it…not worth anyone’s time.
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It’s absolutely meanful. But a block number representing most of the world doesn’t tell you much without interpretation and additional context.
And when a movie can’t seem to cross the profitability line in its home market. And doesn’t even seem profitable taking its global box office into account it tells you something.
Eta: Maybe the better way to phrase it phrase it is they only came close to profitability internationally. The size of the international market means it’s relative common to see a higher box office outside the US than inside.
But the thing we’re looking at is whether a movie made back it’s production budget, or made a profit domestically. Especially in the first few weeks of release. It’s more of a way to tell if a movie made money. But if you see that a series of films are both unprofitable, And more unprofitable over time. And only hitting break even with a big skew on the international side. It tells you something about it’s popularity globally.
$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.
There is hope yet?
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And it’s interesting that DC almost ended up in a Guardians of the Galaxy situation.
The Suicide Squad trailer went viral in a big way. A general public that didn’t know much if anything about those characters or that comic aside from “Jokers in it”. Got very, very, excited about it.
But they had a problem. The trailer bore very little resemblance to the movie in production. And people were now expecting something pretty specific.
DC contracted for a trailer that didn’t represent the movie. And when that Trailer worked very well actually got the trailer company to recut the movie. Then sort of chickened out and had a 3rd person mix the trailer company’s cut with the studios original cut. In an attempt to chase the buzz.
And while It was their biggest hit excepting Wonder Woman. And was apparently popular enough to green light a sequel. A Harley Quinn movie. And like 12 different Joker Movies most of which don’t seem to star Jared Leto.
But reviews were not great. Ratings on your various websites are still pretty bad (if better). Audience reaction seemed mixed. And a lot of the discussion, particularly the persistent one is pretty negative. Mostly about how Jared Leto is awful.
They missed something really critical there. Even when they succeed it’s not cause their idea of what to make worked. It all seems very unthought out and haphazard. Very reactive.
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Seanbaby is my hero!
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And that’s one of biggest failures of the DCEU, right there. Especially as compared to the success of the MCU.
In the MCU, the arc of Phase 1 gave us Fury, Coulson, the Tesseract, Loki: elements that drew together all the films and made Avengers make sense, gave Avengers some context and purpose and some emotional stakes. Every character in Avengers had been previously established and had a meaningful emotional arc to bring them there.
The release-date time span from MoS to JL was four months longer than IM1 to Avengers. DC had more time to build their story, and botched it.
In the DCEU, there was no sensible character development leading to JL, no threads to draw the films and propel them to the capstone. Half the heroes were introduced for the first time in JL, because they stuck the zany unconnected movie (Suicide Squad) before the first-phase capstone (unlike GotG which came out after Avengers). There was no build up toward the threat, no plot development to make the villain in JL believable. The villain was an afterthought, with no connection to any of the prior films, no reason to act as he was acting, no genuine malevolence or well-established motivation, and so hidden under really really bad CGI that he was in no way menacing. He is absurd.
Coulson died and it was a brutal gut punch that brought the team together. Justice League slaughtered dozens of Amazons and Atlaneans with zero impact on the audience or anybody in the story.
And Aquaman? The JL boss fight involves Aquaman and it’s nowhere near water. So, yeah, I have no confidence that this studio has any clue about what to do with that character.
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Well DC ended up with a longer lead up to JL than Marvel had for the avengers. But on the whole they tried to do it faster. IIRC justice league and Batman v Superman Grizley Bear Dance Off both ended up delayed a couple times.
DC effectively just attempted to jump right in on the shared universe thing. They had one movie out. Man of Steel and they went right from that to team ups and introducing as many heroes as possible.
Marvel sort of took their time. For one thing g they apparently planned for years before they actually started on the concept. Put together central story and producing groups. Incredible hulk was apparently the actual first MCU movie, though it bombed and casting changed so it’s no longer included. The early phase 1 movies were entirely stand alone films.
Only tied together by a few characters, chiefly Coulson. And some end credit tags. Fury was a Captain America character who cameoed/debuted in an Iron Man end credits scene. Connections built over time. And we only saw full blown shared universe for the first time with Avengers itself. A lot of the early ties only became clear looking back.
And they adapted as they went based on what worked. Earnest retro Captain America was less popular than Iron Man. So Winter Soldier became a spy thriller. Loki was the biggest thing to come out of Thor (or the only thing) so Loki became the keystone Villain of the whole thing, And the lead baddy in Avengers. Incredible Hulk didn’t work. So they recast. And Hulk became a team guy, And back ended. Until they found a way to make it work. Thor was dragging to. Do they teamed the two up in a wildly different approach to the Thor mythos. Black widow was more popular than expected. So she became the 2nd lead in Winter Soldier. And the key tie between an awful lot of the movies in place of Fury after a bit.
It was effectively a decade before we saw all these moving pieces fully tied together and operating as a whole.
DC tied their whole shebang to the first bankable director they could find (after his career started to stagnate). And ran directly into full avengers phase 3 mode. And hasn’t really seemed to have a clear idea of why.
That’s why Justice League is such a massive problem. It’s not just a bomb. Justice League was the point. Everything else they were doing was about getting to Justice League is fast as possible. And the real money would be made on Justice League. Whereas for Marvel. Multiple tentpole trilogies was the point. Avengers was icing on the cake. And going harder, further and more comic booky after avengers was a risk.
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No, Iron Man came first. There’s a post-credit scene in Incredible Hulk in which Tony Stark meets General Ross in a bar and tells him they’re putting a team together. It also teased at the then-upcoming Captain America. It’s still canonically an MCU movie.
Ang Lee’s earlier Hulk movie was a different matter entirely.
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Yeah I might have reversed them in my head they came out within a month of each other.
But I do vaguely remember people debating which was technically first. And marvel specifically calling out Hulk as technically first. Maybe because of which order they were planned on, or because Hulks ties were more explicit.
By the time they started talking about Phases and publishing explicit lists of which and when future movies would be coming out Hulk seemed to have been removed. Rather than regarded as the 2nd film. So that film is tied to the MCU but the MCU isn’t too tied to that movie.
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