Superman spends an awful lot of time killing people. When he’s not doing that he’s commonly presented visually with allusions to Christ. Something that was followed up on in Killshrew VS Manbulge by showing Superman as an actual figure of religious reverence for the public.
Zak Snyders Superman = Murder Jesus.
Man of Steel was not a terrible movie. It was a serviceable if bland action flick. Deathmarmot vs Codpiece on the other hand is an objectively bad movie. And there are no end of unpackings of why out there online right now. Including some by people who study and teach film and media (and for my part I have a BA in Film/Media). In terms of basic building blocks of story. Basic mechanics of how film works. How it is assembled. On a technical level. That film is both broken and bad. Which isn’t always evidence of an objectively, overall bad movie. Something can be broken, ineffectual, improperly made, or just plain fail in its aims and still be quite interesting (in fact I tend to prefered flawed but interesting over anything else). StabBadger vs Dancebelt fails on both fronts. Its neither an interesting failure, nor a competently assembled block of bland fun. But that’s besides the point.
What I was getting at was that the versions of those characters depicted do not resemble the versions of those characters that fans are into. The versions that they became fans of. So these movies can not be seen as an attempt to make films for the hardcore fans. Superman in his most loved, fan favorite iterations is not a mopey guy who is willing to kill. Comics fans did not fall in love with Superman because his parents told him it was better to hide than to help people. The Batman that fans are so rabid about is defined in large part by the fact that he does not, will not, and cannot kill. And so forth. However much you pack oblique, mutated references to the comics in. These version are not the versions fans are looking for. No fan of Jimmy Olsen was dying to see him as a CIA agent who is promptly killed. In the grand scheme of things Death of Superman and the whole Doomsday thing are not well loved.
What you’ve got here is DC, perhaps, playing to fans of very specific things. Grim and gritty, overwrought releases from the late 80’s through the mid-nineties. And even more specifically rabid fans of things like The Dark Knight Returns, Death Of Superman and other headline stories from the time. And while there are a sizable number of people (often those growing up at the time) who seek out and prefer that material (there’s a reason Rob Liefeld keeps showing up again, often at DC), they’re a fraction of the over all fan-base. And in my experience while those things are often liked or loved by big swaths of the fandom. They are not prefered by anything approaching the majority. If memory serves, even among the “all male all white all college student” demographic from when I was most into comics the kind of person who is all about this stuff are a vast minority. And often mocked. I’ve seen the “No Liefeld is the greatest” fight starter kicked out of the dankest basement comic shop. And seen less dank comic shops owned by these sorts run themselves into the ground, noone else wanted to shop there. In any case the people who are rabid fans of this stuff are no more deserving of the “hardcore” or “fan” label than my friend who’s collected every issue of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen. Or it should be noted my female friends who subscribed to every Bat-Book, and subsequently dropped them over recent Batgirl fuckery.
More over that era in comics, that approach to comics wasn’t particularly successful. There were huge sales by the early nineties. But a lot of that was driven by scummy sales tactics (alt covers, collectible issues, stunts, crossovers) inflating things. And the industry nearly died by the end of that era. The grit and spit approach drove a lot of people away from comics entirely. Flash forward to the 00’s and comics are rising in popularity and you see a return to what had come before. To please the “fans” and the "hardcore’ IE the handful of people who actually liked the stuff that drove everyone else off in the 90’s and struck around. It worked briefly but sales cratered again, until the spike in superhero movies became the prime driver of profits and interest in the books. There are fans of this stuff, but they are not the fans. Or indicative of most of the fans of these characters and properties. And fans of any sort are vastly out numbered by the general public. Most of BloodWeasel VS Mangirdle’s box office came over seas, especially from china. Are we really going to assume that playing to the tastes of white, 30-40 year old fans on one specific approach to these characters is the driver of that?
And really to look how not into it most people are you can just look at the box office numbers you already cited.
Shankmarmoset VS Bikeshorts :
Budget: $250 million
Domestic: $330,360,194
Global: $872,662,631
Guardians of The Galaxy:
Budget: $170 million
Domestic: $333,176,600
Global: $773,312,399
A tent pole picture, a sequel/crossover. Featuring the two of the most visible, loved, movie sellingest characters in history. Directed by a bankable name director, and staring Ben Fucking Affleck fresh off the Oscars. Was beat at the domestic box office by a lower budget secondary picture featuring unknown comic characters. The book featuring those characters had only 25 issues out at the time it was announced, and had been cancelled due to lack of sales. Headed by an unknown director who’s filmography featured some weird, dark, gross shit and not much else. Staring a sitcom actor. A talking Raccoon. And a dancing Tree.
And DC only managed to beat them internationally by ~$100 mil. A bonus that’s probably eliminated by the bigger budget. Given Guardian’s lower budget, supposedly smaller marketing costs, successful merchandising, reinvigorated books, recently launched (but not very good) cartoon, etc, etc. Its almost certainly been far more profitable. I’ve heard rumor mill wise that the actual profit from the property as whole has breached a $1bil mark (heard).
DC took a can’t miss premise. An automatic win. And could not beat out an concept that is on its face, absolutely insane. A picture with a built in spectacle and fan base, lost out to one based on a property that had maybe 25,000 people regularly reading it.
