Say what you will about the quality of the recent DC movies, but they’ve all made bank at the box office. Sure, the absolutely disastrous drop-off in their second and third weeks kept them from making Avengers-level money, but they still all managed to become some of the biggest money-makers in the years they came out.
Not only did Man of Steel make more money than Iron Man, most of that came from international sources, proving that the star-spangled superman is still a massive draw across the world. Batman v Superan raked in well over three quarters of a billion dollars the world over, with Suicide Squad falling just under that same benchmark.
Although it’s off to a slower start at the box office than its male-lead compatriots, Wonder Woman is the kind of movie that the DCEU just hasn’t had until now: a good one. It’s $100+ million opening at the domestic box office is not only impressive in its own right, it is record-breaking amount of money for a female director. Not only do the critics love it — with a commanding 92% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes — but its strong word of mouth and near-fanatical fanbase will ensure that it continues to make money steadily after the initial hype of its release has died out.
And you can expect that Wonder Woman will continue going strong through its second weekend. Its only major competition is coming from The Mummy, which is expected to tank stateside due to the critical savaging its receiving ahead of its release. That means that there are going to be a lot more people looking for something good to watch this weekend, and Wonder Woman is the obvious choice.
While movie-goers are quick to dismiss critics as immaterial to how fans will react to a movie, this hasn’t proven to be the case. A big movie’s opening weekend will be big no matter what, since tickets are pre-ordered in advance and a franchise’s core audience tends to come out in force right when the movie opens. Everybody else, however, tends to look published reviews to get an idea if something is worth their time and, more importantly, their money.
This is the reason why Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad‘s audiences evaporated a week after their release: bad word of mouth and poor reviews made people that thought about going think twice about sitting through what everybody and their mother was calling one of the worst movies of the year. Even though Man of Steel fared better in terms of audience drop off, mixed reviews and divisive public opinion kept it from being the box office sensation that it could have been.
But not Wonder Woman. In the week since its release its become a rallying cry for women across the world: “finally, a superhero movie for us.” Between all-women screenings and calls to bring as many daughters as possible to see an Amazon princess kick the God of War’s butt across the European front, it’s struck a chord with audiences, and that means more money for Warner Bros.
Wonder Woman is a rallying cry. And if it stays steady at the box office, Superman could be the latest man to lose out to the Amazon princess.
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