‘Justice League’ Flies to Lowest Opening in the Entire DCEU

I'm not sure what to say right now. If you're a fan of DC's films, you're likely upset that one of the better entries in the DCEU had the lowest opening of them all. It was still a complete pile of garbage with two great scenes, but Suicide Squad didn't have two great scenes, so it's not the bottom of the barrel. Nevertheless, Justice League was supposed to be DC's Avengers. It should have blown the roof off the box office and instead it opened lower than Wonder Woman, Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, and yes, even Suicide Squad.

Warner Brothers has announced Justice League's opening weekend—including $13 million in Thursday night previews—was $96 million. It's possible it could go as low as $94 based on other studio's estimates, but let's stick with $96 for now. To put that in context of other superhero openings, it's five million dollars higher than franchise killing sequel The Amazing Spider-Man 2. It's a whopping $70 million off of Batman v Superman's opening. It's a measly two million dollars more than Guardians of the Galaxy made in its opening weekend, and when you consider that there wasn't a known commodity in that franchise, compared to the three superheroes in Justice League who have had their own film, that's really bad.

It's a really bad result, no matter how you try to spin it. Either the fans are the only ones going at this point or they've given up entirely and this is mostly money made off of suckers who fell for another tone deaf superhero film. And for those of you foolishly hoping the film will make its money back in China, I would encourage you to read this article where they smash that notion. Justice League notched the FIFTEENTH best opening weekend in the Middle Kingdom this year. China is the place where those Resident Evil movies go to make their money back. JL's opening weekend was $51 million in China compared to Resident Evil 6's $94 million! Roughly $43 million dollars worth of ticket buyers decided they'd rather see Milla Jovovich fight zombies for the sixth time than six iconic superheroes uniting on the big screen for the first time.

DC apologists will tell you that this is just more media bias against them, but the numbers don't lie. Justice League was a not great movie that aped Marvel's formula nearly beat for beat in a desperate attempt to right the ship, and it seems that most of us can now see that. I can't imagine there's much to salvage from this iteration of the Justice League. Affleck's on his way out, and rightly so. Bring in a new Batman, keep Superman moving in the direction he headed in the third act of JL, leave Patty Jenkins alone to create another great Wonder Woman movie, let Aquaman do his thing, make the Flash and Cyborg movies one movie and let them have fun, and give Green Lantern to someone that knows and loves the source material, fix your major league villain problem, and maybe, just maybe, you can have a decent film franchise moving forward. Anything else would be ridiculously dumb and will only further erode your already frustrated fan base. But what do I know? I just work here. 

All statistics via Box Office Mojo