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Wkd Box Office - 12•28-30•18 - Jan 4th update: Aquaman now the highest grossing DCEU film ever with $888M worldwide.
- Thread starter kswiston
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For clarification, I've been saying the thing about DC having a higher floor than Marvel since around 2016, according to a web search of the old place. That's not based on DC being "better," but more on the fact that WB has access to the entire DC Universe. Back when Marvel Entertainment really started its film universe, Spider-Man and X-Men were the company's strongest brands. That's not to say Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man were complete unknowns, but Marvel was starting from its B-tier. They built that Avengers brand, and then Marvel Studios brand as a whole.
WB has mishandled the DCEU, but it's always controlled DC's biggest and brightest. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, The Joker, and later Harley Quinn. (One of the few modern comic characters to take off.) WB has had this:
You can jump farther back.
All coming back to these folks, with the later additions of Flash and Green Lantern.
People were making Aquaman jokes on live TV in the 80s, but that's because we all knew who Aquaman was. WB chose that JL team for a reason and part of that goes back to this.
The closest Marvel has I said Spider-Man, the Hulk, and starting in the 90s, the X-Men. The handing of DC Comics as a worldwide brand since the 70s is far better than Marvel's until the MCU, where without the rights to its biggest brands, Marvel builds up the next level down. Marvel has access to Spider-Man as long as Sony plays ball, and it has the X-Men back, but I think the company hurt the brand slightly by deemphasizing it. (I think not having its biggest has helped Marvel focus on other properties, which has helped, but that's another discussion.)
WB doesn't have to play games. It owns everything. DC's floor for films is higher because the company has kept the primary parts of its brand as cultural touchstones for 40 years. Marvel had to play catch up until WB dropped the ball, since it didn't have Spider-Man and the X-Men.
But now, everything is fun man. We have ourselves some real competition, which should raise the bar.
WB has mishandled the DCEU, but it's always controlled DC's biggest and brightest. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, The Joker, and later Harley Quinn. (One of the few modern comic characters to take off.) WB has had this:
You can jump farther back.
All coming back to these folks, with the later additions of Flash and Green Lantern.
People were making Aquaman jokes on live TV in the 80s, but that's because we all knew who Aquaman was. WB chose that JL team for a reason and part of that goes back to this.
The closest Marvel has I said Spider-Man, the Hulk, and starting in the 90s, the X-Men. The handing of DC Comics as a worldwide brand since the 70s is far better than Marvel's until the MCU, where without the rights to its biggest brands, Marvel builds up the next level down. Marvel has access to Spider-Man as long as Sony plays ball, and it has the X-Men back, but I think the company hurt the brand slightly by deemphasizing it. (I think not having its biggest has helped Marvel focus on other properties, which has helped, but that's another discussion.)
WB doesn't have to play games. It owns everything. DC's floor for films is higher because the company has kept the primary parts of its brand as cultural touchstones for 40 years. Marvel had to play catch up until WB dropped the ball, since it didn't have Spider-Man and the X-Men.
But now, everything is fun man. We have ourselves some real competition, which should raise the bar.
I think Shazam will do respectable numbers but nothing too crazy.
But who cares, they'll have Dwayne Johnson in the sequel. Well, hopefully. Three generations of my family lived and died since he was cast as Black Adam.
But who cares, they'll have Dwayne Johnson in the sequel. Well, hopefully. Three generations of my family lived and died since he was cast as Black Adam.
I'm going to change my top 3 of 2019 and put Lion King in 3rd and move Detective Pikachu into 4th. I think Avengers 4 will crack $2.3b, Star Wars IX will crack $1.5b, and Lion King and DP will sneak over $1.3b. I think there's a chance of a Chinese film passing $1b in its home market.
Shazam will do good for its budget.
Shazam will do good for its budget.
I'm going to copy this and share with some friends, very well said thanks for that.
I'm not expecting huge numbers for Shazam but it has the novelty factor in it's favor with the kid turning into a superhero angle. That could play really well with kids and families.
Don't think it's that simple. Obviously, you aren't going to take your kids to see Us but 50% of the MCU audience is over 25. Us is going to do $200M+ at the box office, that's competition no matter how you slice it.
Don't think it's that simple. Obviously, you aren't going to take your kids to see Us but 50% of the MCU audience is over 25. Us is going to do $200M+ at the box office, that's competition no matter how you slice it.
I've had this argument a thousand times on here before but no, that is way too broad of a statement. It is only true for a select few territories. In actuality, it really is a case by case scenario. This idea that the DC heroes are cultural touchstones was never real in most places outside of Batman and Superman and Superman is a widely disliked character*, hence why every new Superman film is such an uphill battle. And why a non-entity like Aquaman with absolutely zero baggage in most countries can easily outgross Man of Steel.
All of this has been reflected by the international performance of the recent DC films. Which doesn't mean that they can't increase their brand awareness -and Aquaman and Wonder Woman are proof that they have been doing that- but the very base of your reasoning is flawed. Every non-Batman character is basically starting from scratch internationally, same as the MCU ten years ago.
I hope this post doesn't come off as too fanboyish or anything, I'm not writing this from a DC vs Marvel perspective at all.
*And I fucking love Superman.
As someone who had zero interest in seeing it and my kids dragged me to it, it's fucking fantastic. Entertaining and above all it has a crazy artistic vision going on.
I'm just going just now again and it's sold out. Not bag for a Thursday 2pm.
It's still weird but not surprisingly how Rock wants a Black Adam solo movie.
Who knows how that plays out. Shazam, Black Adam, then a crossover/versus movie with the two as a pseudo sequel of both.
I think you're arguing two related, but different points.
What he is saying, is that one way or another DC has kept their characters out there via video games, animated movies, TV shows and the likes.
And I know a few of them aired in different countries, Injustice is a fairly global success and the likes.
That however doesn't mean that the character resonated with others outside of the country, but you would be hard pressed to find a time in the last 40 some odd years where there wasn't a few projects with DC characters out there.
Marvel for its part, kind of doesn't have much of a presence in the 80s or the back half of the 90s until the Spider-man/X-men movies took off in early 2000s.
I wouldn't say the chinese superhero film market blew up this year. Venom and Aquaman did numbers there, getting close to 300MM. IW you can argue for the same, but one could argue that a much bigger output from IW should be expected based on the numbers from Venom and Aquaman. Ant Man and Black Panther did regular Marvel numbers there. Incredibles 2 did poorly relatively speaking. I wouldn't say that's the market blowing up. Venom and Aquaman are/were unknown quantities over there, so the only thing that I'm guessing was outstanding was the marketing. I guess the litmus test for the Chinese market will be this year. If they are warming up and SH movies are becoming a big thing there like you are implying, then we should expect 200MM+ from Captain Marvel, Shazam, FFH, Joker and 450MM+ from Endgame. If they all do numbers close to those, then I'll be inclined to say you are on to something. If, instead, Sony and WB are able to replicate the success of Venom/Aquaman and CM and Endgame do similar numbers to Marvel's own, then I think it's more to do with the way things are marketed there.
I was being a little facetious on the DC front, but you can't deny that DC characters have had more time on the public's mind than Marvel. DC is putting up big numbers with subpar movies. I am not sure if DC has a higher floor and higher ceiling (after all Batman Begins failed to crack 400MM WW and it's arguably the best Batman movie ever). DCEU has had the advantage of being released in a post Avengers world. The numbers for the majority of super hero movies post Avengers is telling and the Avengers effect on super hero movies cannot be ignored.
That said, I grew up watching basketball and other sports and I remember some commentators saying stuff like, "Batman, Superman, and Rodman" or "Stacey 'Plastic Man'" in the 90s. Only more recently have I seen prominent athletes with Marvel nicknames (i.e. Randy Couture as Captain America in the 2000s and Anderson The Spider Silva in the late 2010s. Also more recently soccer players being called Hulk or olympic wrestlers going out with Ironman, Captain, and Black Panther singlets for trials). Except for Spiderman and XMen, DC has always had the mainstream characters until the MCU IMO. One thing to keep in mind though - and Feige gets this - is that most people don't know what's what. I can tell that until I got into CBM I had no idea XMen was Marvel or Spider man was not made by the same company that made Batman.
Fair enough and I do agree with that to an extent.
I didn't quote that part directly but my post was mostly a response to the idea of the DC heroes as cultural touchstones. I see that mentioned a lot on ERA (and GAF previously) and while I admit that it is a pet peeve of mine that I should probably just let slide, it does strike me every time as a very US-centric perspective. Whatever DC and WB did in the 70s, 80s and 90s to position their brands outside of America, it didn't really take in a lot of places at all, while Marvel successfully implanted its root in many countries going back to the 60s with a continued presence since then. That is true for a large part of Western Europe. Again, I'm not saying that it's true everywhere, it's a case by case scenario. But a lot of US folks do not seem to be aware of that. Which is why I find such sweeping statements about the DC properties a bit unjustified every time.
Yeah, people are going back to work. $7.4M is still good though. Jumanji did under $7 last year on the Wednesday after the new year.
Should be. It's both one of the best comic book films and best animated films ever, I think.
Great post from MHWilliams
I'm a HUGE MCU fan but if you don't think DC characters have a higher floor/ceiling you're living in a dream world
I'm a HUGE MCU fan but if you don't think DC characters have a higher floor/ceiling you're living in a dream world
What I loved in Aquaman was his strong character development and the themes of Contrition, Dialogue, Mercy, and admitting and understanding ones shortcomings being the true qualities of both a hero and a leader.
He just had fantastic characterization as this jolly guy who is rough around the edges and not as dumb as he looks, who really learned from his mistakes.
He just had fantastic characterization as this jolly guy who is rough around the edges and not as dumb as he looks, who really learned from his mistakes.
Realistically, any Ms Marvel movie would probably be after Captain Marvel 3, unfortunately.
I'm cynically basing that completely on the fact that one is a brown skinned muslim American girl and the other a blonde white woman. We'll be extremely lucky to see a Kamala movie at all and especially in this decade, very unfortunately. Don't hold your breath on a Ms Marvel movie being officially announced and in production anytime soon.
True. Had this film came out like 4 years ago I might have been exciting to see it. I already know how the fight scenes are going to turn out. She's going to be doing hurricanrana's all over the damn movie.
Both of those also have the some of the most potential if they're good IMO
Green Lantern=DC's GOTG
Fantastic Four=MCU's Incredibles (if they include Franklin/Valeria Richards)
Completely agree. He got a lot of character development.
Also, a lot of ass-whoopin'.
Are these kinds of deals common? Would it make more sense stuff like this is why the focus on China. Cause shit, they secured like half the budget with that deal
OP
OP
Almost every big budget superhero since The Avengers has outgrossed Solo. The one exception was Fant4stic.
True. Can't argue that it might draw away some of the demo, I'm just not seeing a huge overlap.
Well, I'm not disagreeing that it's a case by case basis. The world is pretty big. But on the rest:
The original Batman film was a 60/30 split, but that grew from Forever. The Dark Knight films were 55/44, until Rises, which sees international take over. The original Superman made more than half its money internationally. Superman Returns and Man of Steel were likewise. BvS made around 60 percent.
Batman and Superman are household names worldwide, and that's not due to the comics. Most of it is due to international licensing and syndication; Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman shirts, shoes, toys, etc. And later, the international airing of shows and cartoons related to DC heroes.
Citation #1
Citation #2
I'm not saying these heroes were outstripping local cultural product—Europe is loving say, Asterix more than a DC hero—but DC Comics' main heroes have enjoyed higher visibility over a more consistent period of time than Marvel. Certainly more than Marvel had until Spider-Man and the X-Men in the 90s, and again, Marvel didn't have direct access to them.
And nah, you don't have to worry about your post being seen as fanboy stuff. S'all good.
Patty Jankins said in an interview :
I agree. there is a place for these movies still .
Oh man. Out of all the Transformers films the Chinese choose not to support they pick the only good one.
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