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BLACK ADAM starring Dwayne Johnson (TBD)
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1,456 posts in this topic

On 12/4/2022 at 4:46 AM, Sauce Dog said:

Lowest numbers for any DCEU film
 

 

I was at the theater the day before the opening.  There was no poster in the lobby, no flyers, no preview on the other films showing at the cinema, and the TV spots are non-existent.  Only some social media PR.  Really disappointing!

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The old regime counted on Dwayne Johnson as their marketing arm. Unfortunately with all the start and stops in the grand DC picture, they couldn't publicize Henry Cavill's return beforehand to convey there was a connection to earlier films.

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On 12/5/2022 at 3:26 AM, Bosco685 said:

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I'm really surprised Shazam did as well as it did. Who cares about him? 

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On 12/4/2022 at 4:05 PM, Cat said:

I'm really surprised Shazam did as well as it did. Who cares about him? 

You would be surprised.

The Captain Marvel-ology social media account has over 4K followers, and has had a large following for years just posting about legacy comic book content.

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On 12/5/2022 at 7:20 AM, Bosco685 said:

You would be surprised.

The Captain Marvel-ology social media account has over 4K followers, and has had a large following for years just posting about legacy comic book content.

I just can't stand the character and don't know what anybody sees in him. Surely everyone has a character they irrationally hate? He's mine. 

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On 12/4/2022 at 4:32 PM, Cat said:

I just can't stand the character and don't know what anybody sees in him. Surely everyone has a character they irrationally hate? He's mine. 

It must have been all the "pull my finger" jokes throughout the series over the decades

:baiting:

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On 12/5/2022 at 8:20 PM, Gatsby77 said:

I more shocked that after nearly a dozen films across the DCEU, the biggest film was...Aquaman.

That is a very good point. Does this mean he deserves respect? 

 

Spoiler

Lol no

 

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On 12/5/2022 at 5:20 AM, Gatsby77 said:

I more shocked that after nearly a dozen films across the DCEU, the biggest film was...Aquaman.

I get where you are trying to go in a quest to once again use box office results as a gotcha moment. But it's not that complicated.

Where the WB Studios executive team screwed up early on is that once it received excessive negative feedback with the second film, it over-course corrected and then kept doing this repeatedly. It had no faith in itself, yet realized if it could do things right there was success to be had at the box office. And if they had established DC Studios early on like Marvel Entertainment (and later Disney) had with Marvel Studios, it could have pushed forward like the Marvel side had.

Even with its later massive successes, Marvel Studios bounced around with its results until it landed at Marvel's The Avengers. That's where the go-forward secret sauce came together wonderfully.

DCU_MCU.thumb.PNG.1acaa5fbff162faea7330d907688dafb.PNG

Yet if DC Studios had established a clear and self-driven P&L owner(s) versus WB Studios tampering, that leader or team would have seen the slow buildup to a bigger film was actually much stronger than assumed.

With the later constant changes in direction with no clear Marketing message to moviegoers what the Worlds of DC plan was about, it's not surprising it didn't have similar financial successes like the MCU. Marvel Studios had now conditioned audiences with the earlier franchise buildup there was ONE way to do this - unless someone could convey how this all plays out purposefully to have varying directions with films, TV shows and streaming content. And yet despite its own tampering, the DC properties had many TV show, streaming show and animated show successes along with a few live movie successes. Whether connected to the 'DCEU' or not.

W_Of_DC01.thumb.PNG.73f96486ba32debc72bb13ff108fd097.PNG

As horribly marketed and packaged as Birds of Prey was (and it certainly was), the timing disrupted this film making more money to hit that magic 2.5X-2.6X revenue rate number to clearly show it had at least broken even.

  • Domestic Release Date: 2/7/2020
  • COVID Pandemic WHO Announcement (official recognition): 3/11/2020

What worked wonderfully for the MCU is the leadership driving Marvel Studios took stock of early on though it had a box office failure (The Incredible Hulk) and a break-even movie (Captain America: The First Avenger), it stayed the course and corrected where needed while driving forward with a story that had been smartly marketed to moviegoers they were on an ever-expanding adventure. And over time, that resulted in multiple box office successes.

And for those that may assume "But the MCU did it early on and had that bump in the road to overcome" where comic book movies were not the norm, that's actually not accurate. Just looking at DC and Marvel movies alone (ignoring Dark Horse and other entity films), there were 41 movies based on these two companies since 1978. There had been much groundwork established before the 2008 debut of Iron Man. Especially 9 key Marvel movies that laid the groundwork for Marvel Studios.

Marvel6.thumb.PNG.6febbaad430ad6ef92a5605703a274f3.PNG

Edited by Bosco685
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On 12/5/2022 at 8:32 AM, Gatsby77 said:

Blah blah blah.

The DCEU's released 11 films so far over a solid decade - 3 of which featured Batman.

And the only one to break even $900 million globally was Aquaman.

Rationalize all you want - that's simply a fact.

Real details are very disruptive to a given narrative, aren't they?

Good thing is rather than taking the 'blah blah blah' bate so you can rush back to Mike with an escalation, we can just reflect on the facts above. Which are facts.

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On 12/4/2022 at 7:28 AM, BanjerD said:

I was at the theater the day before the opening.  There was no poster in the lobby, no flyers, no preview on the other films showing at the cinema, and the TV spots are non-existent.  Only some social media PR.  Really disappointing!

Not sure why The Rock was the only person doing promo for this.

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On 12/5/2022 at 9:00 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

Not sure why The Rock was the only person doing promo for this.

 

On 12/5/2022 at 9:07 AM, D84 said:

Yeah, I'm surprised we didn't see more of Aldis Hodge and Pierce Brosnan doing junkets.

Agreed! The old leadership team was checked out by then, and made it Dwayne Johnson's issue to deal with.

Even with the news coming out Henry Cavill's return was blocked all the way to the end until the new Co-CEOs came in and gave the approval - that previous team was all about NOT making DC films a focus.

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https://variety.com/2022/film/box-office/black-adam-box-office-100-million-loss-1235449487/

This is an interesting piece for a few reasons:

  • States Black Adam's cost at $195 million
  • Claims marketing budget was scaled back to $80 million due to lingering pandemic concerns
  • Rather than traditional $600 million theatrical break-even, studio purportedly now claims break-even is just $400 million because of the "home entertainment landscape" - basically, it's expected to over-perform in the immediate post-theatrical on-demand/rental/etc. (where it's already available).

I have a hard time believing even $450 million theatrical = break-even for this film. $500 million? Yes, but $450 million's stretching it.

Seems a moot point, as I don't think this will hit even $400 million.

But are we supposed to believe that studios now think just 2.0 production cost = break-even going forward because of changing viewing habits & shortened theatrical windows?

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On 12/5/2022 at 4:13 AM, Bosco685 said:

I get where you are trying to go in a quest to once again use box office results as a gotcha moment. But it's not that complicated.

Where the WB Studios executive team screwed up early on is that once it received excessive negative feedback with the second film, it over-course corrected and then kept doing this repeatedly. It had no faith in itself, yet realized if it could do things right there was success to be had at the box office. And if they had established DC Studios early on like Marvel Entertainment (and later Disney) had with Marvel Studios, it could have pushed forward like the Marvel side had.

Even with its later massive successes, Marvel Studios bounced around with its results until it landed at Marvel's The Avengers. That's where the go-forward secret sauce came together wonderfully.

DCU_MCU.thumb.PNG.1acaa5fbff162faea7330d907688dafb.PNG

Yet if DC Studios had established a clear and self-driven P&L owner(s) versus WB Studios tampering, that leader or team would have seen the slow buildup to a bigger film was actually much stronger than assumed.

With the later constant changes in direction with no clear Marketing message to moviegoers what the Worlds of DC plan was about, it's not surprising it didn't have similar financial successes like the MCU. Marvel Studios had now conditioned audiences with the earlier franchise buildup there was ONE way to do this - unless someone could convey how this all plays out purposefully to have varying directions with films, TV shows and streaming content. And yet despite its own tampering, the DC properties had many TV show, streaming show and animated show successes along with a few live movie successes. Whether connected to the 'DCEU' or not.

W_Of_DC01.thumb.PNG.73f96486ba32debc72bb13ff108fd097.PNG

As horribly marketed and packaged as Birds of Prey was (and it certainly was), the timing disrupted this film making more money to hit that magic 2.5X-2.6X revenue rate number to clearly show it had at least broken even.

  • Domestic Release Date: 2/7/2020
  • COVID Pandemic WHO Announcement (official recognition): 3/11/2020

What worked wonderfully for the MCU is the leadership driving Marvel Studios took stock of early on though it had a box office failure (The Incredible Hulk) and a break-even movie (Captain America: The First Avenger), it stayed the course and corrected where needed while driving forward with a story that had been smartly marketed to moviegoers they were on an ever-expanding adventure. And over time, that resulted in multiple box office successes.

And for those that may assume "But the MCU did it early on and had that bump in the road to overcome" where comic book movies were not the norm, that's actually not accurate. Just looking at DC and Marvel movies alone (ignoring Dark Horse and other entity films), there were 41 movies based on these two companies since 1978. There had been much groundwork established before the 2008 debut of Iron Man. Especially 9 key Marvel movies that laid the groundwork for Marvel Studios.

Marvel6.thumb.PNG.6febbaad430ad6ef92a5605703a274f3.PNG

Birds of Prey, the suicide squad, wonder woman 1984, super pets, black adam.  Dwayne and Margot were the "stars" of two of those each.

The DCEU is on a flop streak to end all flop streaks.  When your "BEST" performer is yet another Batman movie, it's time to pause and reflect.  It may even be time to blow the whole thing up and start over again in a decade or so.   

-J.

Edited by Jaydogrules
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On 12/7/2022 at 10:43 AM, Jaydogrules said:

Birds of Prey, the suicide squad, wonder woman 1984, super pets, black adam.  Dwayne and Margot were the "stars" of two of those.  

The DCEU is on a flop streak to end all flop streaks.  When your "BEST" performer is yet another Batman movie, it's time to pause and reflect.  It may even be time to blow the whole thing up and start over again in a decade or so.   

-J.

Impossible to say how much they would have made without the same-day HBO Max release.

They kickstarted the DCU with 6 heroes appearing in BvS. Wonder Woman is the only one who got a movie in 2022. It's no surprise why no money is being made right now. (shrug) Gunn aims to fix that, hopefully in the proper manner.

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On 12/7/2022 at 10:43 AM, Jaydogrules said:

Birds of Prey, the suicide squad, wonder woman 1984, super pets, black adam.  Dwayne and Margot were the "stars" of two of those.  

The DCEU is on a flop streak to end all flop streaks.  When your "BEST" performer is yet another Batman movie, it's time to pause and reflect.  It may even be time to blow the whole thing up and start over again in a decade or so.   

-J.

Maybe by revenue ratio - but in the pre-press on Black Adam it was clear executives had Aquaman-level hopes for this movie.

Again, Aquaman stands as the aspirational goal for DCEU films, as it solely cleared not only $900 million but pushed the envelope up beyond $1.1 billion.

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