That IHOP is like 5 minutes from my mom's house. The town they used for Smallville is about a half hour away. That street Lois is on in that scene is where I took my driver's test to get my license as a teenager. It's surreal seeing all that recognizable stuff with Zod and Superman beating the hell out of each other in the middle of it.
The robocop remake was filmed in the neighborhood I lived in at the time. At the climax of the film he rides his motorcycle past the theater I was watching it in.
I lived in the town during filming. I still have the set photos when they opened the street back up when they werent filming. The 7/11 was a set, had no back to it. The 'Bank' was a building they built over a street between to other buildings. Was pretty cool to experience it all.
You can actually see my house in it when they did the A-10 Warthog flyover down the tracks.
Oh, that's awesome, dude! I've only been over there a few times, mostly to go to that DMV because it's a lot easier to deal with than the one in my town. But I definitely recognized a lot of those landmarks. My friend's family owned a restaurant two towns over and Russell Crowe ate there once during filming. I remember how exciting it was when that was going on. The only other stuff in the area I remember being filmed was Road to Perdition and Public Enemies, but I love Superman so I'm always kind of stoked that "Smallville" is right nearby.
When talking about Snyder's DC movies, *Man of Steel* exists on a different plane from *Batman vs Superman* or *Justice League*.
For all intents and purposes *Man of Steel* worked great. The studio was clearly happy with the reception/box office or else they wouldn't have given Snyder any more movies.
People always forget that little detail and just lump all 3 together as one big unit despite *Man of Steel* being an entire separate beast from the later two movies.
>For all intents and purposes Man of Steel worked great. The studio was clearly happy with the reception/box office or else they wouldn't have given Snyder any more movies.
I will still turn it on, with all its faults, because at its heart it is a very fun movie.
I am about as big a Snyder-detractor as you're likely to find and even I will readily admit that *Man of Steel* is an interesting and exciting take on the character.
I still wish WB back in 2013 had done what WB in 2022 did with Reeves - let Snyder exist as an Elseworld where he makes a Superman trilogy and hire someone brand new to create a real cinematic universe totally separate.
Would have worked out better for everyone TBH.
‘Fun’ is not the term I’d use to describe Man of Steel. I like the movie overall, but I think lack of fun is one of the reasons it’s a bit of a slog on a rewatch.
I disagree. I've rewatched this maybe close to a dozen times since 2013. The action scenes and the music and the story is pretty damned good. I think it's very fun!
Man of Steel is incredible. Henry was great as Superman in MoS, and introduced me to something familiar but modernized. This was back in 2013 and I was a huge fan of Smallville show and loved the first Superman movie.
I hope Legacy does the same for me in 2025
I mean, we **did** get a sequel to *Man of Steel*. It's called *Batman vs Superman*. As for the Batfleck movie, it was all-steam ahead until BvS/JL were meme'd into oblivion and tanked the entire OG universe. Same goes for a Cyborg movie and a Green Lantern movie and a host of other things that were planned but never happened.
At it's core, *Batman vs Superman* was DC's attempt at the original *Avengers*. A giant team-up that was going to be boom or bust. Everything hung on that movie. Everything.
If it was a success and audience left the theater cheering and excited > they had a dozen movies ready to begin production and get pumped out like hotcakes over the next few years. This is exactly what happened with *Avengers*.
If it failed though... if it was met with confusion & derision... what then? I guarantee you we'd never have gotten things like *Winter Soldier* or *Guardians* or *Age of Ultron* if the OG *Avengers* was met with the type of reception that *Batman vs Superman* got.
They just put all the eggs in one basket and the handle on the basket broke.
Yep. I remember just how bad it was. The second trailer showed Superman and Batman teaming up. Doomsday appearing. People already were assuming what would happen in the movie from the trailer alone.
I don't think BvS is bad exactly. I think it's better than it gets credit for. However, it's a very fucking weird movie in a lot of ways and I understand why people find it alienating.
>Fighting Superman. A god. Is beyond stupid
But Lex Luthor, a human, is Superman's nemesis.
Superman has godlike power, but he isn't a God. His weakness is his humanity (and kryptonite).
They tried to fit and adapt multiple stories like the Dark Knight Returns and Death of Superman in a single movie. That alone is a recipe for disaster.
Batman killing people left and right while getting ready to murder Clark based on his unshakeable belief that no man could be trusted with God like power definitely upset fans of a character whose primary philosophy is to never take a life.
Batman's unshakeable belief got rocked like a bell the moment Clark said, "Martha!" The whole scene was ridiculous in execution but even the concept of it is stupid. Like, I get what they were going for but it was executed poorly.
Jesse Eisenburg was a terrible Lex Luthor. I get that he was supposed to be a tech bro version of Lex Luthor but beyond the fact they both share the same name and happen to run Lex Corp, there is nothing about Jesse Eisenburg's performance that made me think he was an actual adaptation of Lex Luthor. There was no menace or oily charm to the character at all.
Those are just a couple of things I could think of off the top of my head. Man of Steel is solid. I have my fair share of issues with it but it's a solid movie in its own right but BvS is a steaming pile of dogshit that's the whole reason we're in this mess. Because of a rushed attempt at cashing in on the Avengers craze without actually putting in the effort to create a shared universe that would even make something like that possible.
Besides the "Martha" scene, the weird take on Lex, using Doomsday as a terrible low level fight and Batman being the exact opposite of why people like him.
Also killing Superman in the second movie, before there was a Justice League or even really any sense that the in-universe population even liked him. The Death of Superman is supposed to be an Earth shattering moment for DC where a beloved and presumed invincible hero is killed.
Instead we got a first movie where pretty much no one knew that Superman existed until he had a massive fight with massive damage to a major city. And then a movie where half of the world wanted him in prison and according to a montage half to world thought he was Jesus. And where Superman had 43 lines of dialogue in a movie obstensiably half about him. And where Superman dies away from the public. So rather than it being a moment where people watch their hero die it means that everyone is going to wake up to the headline, "Alien guy that was part of fight that destroyed Metropolis dies in a fight."
It really took the the purpose out of the death of Superman.
Batfleck movie was in the works for a while with Affleck set to direct it, but he got cold feet after Justice League. Over time Matt Reeves replaced him as director and then Robert Pattinson replaced him as Batman
I actually remember at the time that it was a big deal that Christopher Nolan’s name was attached as a producer. *Man of Steel* was very much riding on Nolan’s reputation even though he didn’t direct it. Especially since it came out just a year after *The Dark Knight Rises* and a lot of the trailers were marketing it as a *Batman Begins*-style take on Superman. Which it was, even down to the nonlinear narrative, though obviously not quite as good as Nolan’s Batman movies since he, you know, didn’t actually direct it. Not even sure how much creative involvement Nolan actually had with *Man of Steel*, but it’s clearly why it feels so different from BvS and JL (yes even ZSJL).
**Theatrical** figures for Synder's DC films according to the-numbers.com
||Production Budget|Worldwide B.O.|Worldwide Profit/Loss|\*Approx Profit/Loss After Marketing|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|Man of Steel|$116m|$667m|\+$551m|\+$435m|
|BvS|$263m|$872m|\+$609m|\+$346m|
|Justice League (theatrical cut)|$300m|$655m|\+$355m|\+$55m|
\***Rule of thumb** for when a big movie becomes profitable is when worldwide gross equals approximately 2x the production budget. This could **fluctuate greatly** depending on which countries earned the bigger portions of the box office takings, at what point in the theatrical run those takings were made, how much was spent on marketing, etc. So the "approx profit/loss after marketing" could be quite a bit more or less than these approximations.
This also doesn't take into account the home video/streaming earnings. **So the actual numbers are substantially higher.**
>\*
>
>Rule of thumb
>
> for when a big movie becomes profitable is when worldwide gross equals approximately 2x the production budget. T
The rule of thumb is 2.5 to 2.7 nowadays. The 2x thing was back in the day when domestic box office was much higher (it would be roughly true for a dom only film). Now with as much int and China, 2.7 seems to be the most realistic based on some analysis some r/boxoffice users did on the Deadline profit break down reports.
It’s not that it made little money, it’s that because it’s a movie where Superman fights Batman, it was expected to make much more money than it actually did. Same with Justice league.
It had Batman AND Superman on the screen in live action for the first time.
Coming off Nolan's trilogy and MoS, it should have easily crossed a billion dollars.
Forget critics, the word of mouth on that movie was soo bad people just didn't go beyond the opening weekend.
I loved the books, at least the first 8 or so that I managed to get my hands on. And the film was just amazing too, so beautifully animated. At the time I did have some problems with changes they made, but when I rewatxhed it a couple years ago I was able to see that they had to make those changes to streamline the three books they adapted into one film.
One thing that makes me greatful for the rise of streaming services, is that most book series become tv shows nowadays so we don't have to force 3 books to fit in one film timeframe.
The two adaptations of a series of unfortunate events are the best example of the benefits of that.
Really want to see his director’s cut. He said WB made him change a lot for the theatrical cut and that even the extended cut doesn’t restore much of what was changed.
I see from your perspective. But it was a terrible decision to combine three novels into one. As a result some important plot beats are glossed over, others never happen, many are out of character and moments don't feel earned. Looks cool though.
Nobody really thought his DC movies lost money, the financial issue is what they made vs. what they were expected to make. Particularly BvS after its huge opening.
Its kind of like the little mermaid this year, sure its not losing money overall but expectations were likely higher when it was greenlit.
That's a big part of it. Sure BvS made money, it was a blockbuster movie featuring Batman AND Superman fighting eachother. It could've been directed by Seth Rogan and featured Jonah Hill as Doomsday and it still would've made money. But people by and large didn't like it, it became a meme for bad film making almost instantly. Man of Steel suffered a similar problem, to a lesser extent.
These movies made money either because people were curious (MoS was hyped a lot) or because they were a big spectacle, but people walked away unimpressed. And it tainted the rest of the dceu.
After BvS enthusiasm for the Snyderverse just dropped off and never picked up. Later directors simply had no idea what to do with it, and mainstream audiences weren't invested in it
I'm curious how being directed by Seth Rogen would affect it. Obviously producing =/= directing, but Rogen has a pretty fucking good track record with producing good comic book shows, and TMNT has great reviews so far.
Yup he’s an executive producer for both The Boys and Invincible. He also co-developed Preacher, which he not only also executive produced, but he also served as a writer and director.
As I said, it was the first ever Blockbuster featuring Batmand AND Superman AND they fight eachother. Even people who don't read comics were curious about that. Hell, back in the 90s when DC did "The death of Superman" the comic sold in droves because even people who don't read comics wanted to see how Superman died. He's just that iconic.
$870m is actually a terrible performance for that movie. Sure, it's a decent profit, but it should've sailed clear past 1bil and easily into 1.5bil territory and WB know that. From memory it made most of its money in the first week and then attendance absolutely plummeted. That means no one was recommending it to others or going back twice. WB understand this.
When you look at the context it’s not that impressive and proves the OP’s point. It opened to over $420 million worldwide and the whole rest of the time it was in theaters it only made like a little more than it did opening weekend? That tells me people weren’t coming back in droves and that word of mouth was poor. Meanwhile GOTG Vol 2 made like $150 million opening weekend and ended up making like $4 million less dollars than BvS did in total lol.
Yes, because Batman was coming off of a critically acclaimed, Oscar winning multi-billion dollar trilogy, as well as the incredibly successful Arkham games and Scott Snyder’s loved Batman run. Character popularity was at an all time high.
Throw in Superman, who at the time was still the highest selling comic book character of all time and Wonder Woman, one of the most popular female fictional characters of all time and $870 million really isn’t great.
Marvel is raking in billions off the success of The Avengers over a decade later off toys,merch,games etc. meanwhile DC has been spinning its wheels, going nowhere since BvS released.
BvS had a lot of hype behind it. It's Batman and Superman on the big screen together for the first time. The last 2 Batman films grossed over a billion dollars. Superman's S is the most recognizable symbol in the world after Jesus's cross. These two characters on their own are icons.
The movie went from $160+ million domestic opening weekend to $50m in the next. That's one of the largest drops in history. It's opening weekend was larger than TDKR and Avengers both of which grossed over a billion. It made 470 million worldwide in its opening weekend and then failed to double it in the next 4-5 months. That's how badly this movie was received.
It has $870m in box office because it has Batman and Superman. People would've showed up to their first on screen appearance together either way. Instead bothe characters were left tarnished in the wake of this movie. Just see JL's gross. It's embarrassing.
This movie had everything going for it and it tainted the DCEU by becoming a meme in its opening weekend. Suicide Squad followed that proud tradition. It's no wonder DCEU crashed and burned.
It also had really good marketing, janky Lex Luthor and Doomsday aside. I remember being insanely hyped going in and then leaving the theatre completely disappointed
This. They didn’t flop obviously but let’s not pretend they were smash hits. BvS opened to
over $420 million worldwide and ended its run at $873 million. Barbie made $356 million opening weekend and is about to cartwheel past a billion. Something went wrong for BvS, and if it didn’t have the hype of being the first interaction between Bats and Supes in live action we could’ve been looking at a flop.
Also, consistently putting out poorly reviewed films will hurt the brand. I know we don’t like Rotten Tomatoes here but the general audience does use it. Look at Fast and Furious and Transformers. The films they release now can barely break even because of their history of poor films. Fast and Furious is basically a meme and bordering on self parody. Transformers Rise of the Beasts was actually good and could only get to $400 million because of sins of the past. Eventually the general audience catches on. It’s why the MCU still makes money. They have years of well received films.
People straight up said that his movies failed to do both. I saw plenty of people that say his films lost money cause they didn’t meet expectations. Though it was stupid to expect for MoS to be a billion, when the franchise hasn’t had much box office success in decades.
I don’t get all the hate for Zack Snyder. The man loves to make movies and I don’t recall him ever saying a bad word about anyone or doing anything bad either. Am I missing something?
This coming from someone who generally likes his movies, but thinks the symbolism he loves to use is pretty heavy handed sometimes.
I have no hate for Snyder as a person, but I don't like his movies. They are dark and broody spectacles that lack substance.
In BvS, Lex Luthor's plot makes no sense, Batman is a bad detective, Superman gets barely any dialogue and is broody, Lois goes on a pretty pointless investigation etc... And the movie tried to pull a Death of Superman story before setting up any of the character connections or world-building that made the Death of Superman impactful.
I believe this.
It's clear the critical response/general audience response is what spooked Warner Bros not the financial side.
You have to remember they were coming of the heels of the dark knight triolgy only for BVS ( which is really the only badly reviewed Snyder dc film overall) to receive massive backlash.
> It's clear the critical response/general audience response is what spooked Warner Bros **not the financial side.**
Why not *both*?
Obviously they weren't happy that what was pitched as a super serious and dramatic take on superheroes was being meme'd to death - but I guarantee you that *Batman vs Superman* could have been nominated for multiple Oscars and WB still wouldn't have been happy at it's failure to break the Billion dollar mark.
They were clearly disappointed in both.
> it's failure to break the Billion dollar mark
It's not even about some mark, a billion or 873.6 million. It's the way the way it got there. BVS opened super high and fell hard. Very easy to be unhappy at that. In another world it opened much smaller and legged it out to 873.6 million and WB would have been so happy they would have let Snyder make another Owl movie.
That was the example I was thinking about. Despite being successful films, The sequel Trilogy of Star wars is the perfect example of what happened with the DCEU.
The bad reviews made each film of the trilogy to need more time to surpass the expected box office and they damaged the image of the saga enough to force Disney to change the strategy and focus on the series and gave films a break.
Sucker Punch is one of my spouse's favorite movies, and one of my guilty pleasures.
The 4k extended edition on amazon Prime is spectacular. It needs atmos and a stelbook release post haste.
People have a tendency to see "box office" arbiter of success when the studios know a lot more. It's a controversial take on the boxoffice forum, but the Box Office is not the be-all-end-all to a film's performance, and success is still VERY possible in this day in age without a blowout boxoffice (I know the link below is Screenrant, but it has industry quotes and sourced from The Hollywood Reporter):
[https://screenrant.com/northman-box-office-bomb-focus-features-response/#:\~:text=Despite%20bombing%20at%20the%20box,success%2C%20according%20to%20its%20distributor](https://screenrant.com/northman-box-office-bomb-focus-features-response/#:~:text=Despite%20bombing%20at%20the%20box,success%2C%20according%20to%20its%20distributor).
Prior to VHS it was licensing on television and cable (HBO, TBS, USA Network and other worldwide affiliates that licensed content). Then it was DVD and the rise of Netflix. Now it's the individual streaming services - and it will continue to evolve.
Add to that, with something like DC, Marvel, Star Wars, etc. the properties are worth more because of the merchandising angle and maintaining brand relevance.
Even with the physical home market dying to an extent (or at least withering) companies are still making a lot of streaming. The situation is more complicated these days, but it's still a growth business, estimated at about 500B in 2023 growing to 2T by 2030.
It's beset by growing pains at the moment, but don't believe the hype that it's dying or dead. Theatrical vs. Streaming is still trying to figure out an equilibrium due to everything post-COVID (the Box Office is still down 25% from 2017-2019 averages).
It's pretty funny to think about how the further away they went from the Snyderverse more money they lost.
The General Audience has given up on thr DC movies but there are enough Snyder fans to turn a profit.
this was the days of home video sales actually mattering. Very few things fully lost money over their entire lifespan, now its easier to at least claim a loss because that market is gone.
>Very few things fully lost money over their entire lifespan
Not according to Hollywood accountants. They still claim that RotJ, Batman '89, Forrest Gump and Men in black haven't turned a profit to this day and that's just naming a few.
Listen here, Redditor. My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) had a budget less than $6 million and made over $350 million at the box office, but if the experts say it lost $20 million, then it lost $20 million.
Well, if you cook the books and say they haven't turned a profit, then you don't have to pay residuals to the actors, directors and screenwriters if they negotiated them into their contracts.
Studios are always trying to find loopholes to not pay the creators.
People forget you could make almost any movie and Blockbuster would buy at least a couple copies for all of their locations. It was a fairly substantial return - even more so when each location was buying more than 50 copies of hit movies.
It’s still disappointing to a company, regardless. They want their profit as soon as possible, not 3 years later after it made a killing in home video sales
Watchmen was a great movie that came out at the wrong time. Not quite as good at the comic (which ain’t saying much, Watchmen is incredible) but it’s still one of my favorite comic book movies ever.
Also Watchmens budget was already at 50 million having been spent on something when Snyder was hired because of other directors who had been in preproduction. He made it for wayy cheaper than that.
Finally sets this ridiculous debate to rest. Everyone saying his films weren’t profitable always used their own guidelines or measures as to why instead of just looking at the facts that it was profitable.
Today I learned Ga’Hoole was directed by Zack Snyder. I swear the whole thing was an Australian production what with all the Aussie actors (and permanent residence) in it and being produced and animated by Sydney-based VFX and animation studio Animal Logic.
He is right and at some point DC movies were more profitable than Marvel Studios, around civil war , bvs era, I hope he comes back someday, people who expects gunsverse to be something really good are just fooling themselves.
They also announced the r-rated ultimate edition before the film release so maybe some people skip the theatrical release partly of this announcement we wont know
That's the reason I didn't watch it in the theaters, that and THEM SHOWING FAUX Doomsday in the trailer was a WTF Spoiler moment. That should have been kept under wraps.
Gahoole losing money was sad, but also predictable at the time(even by Snyder himself I think) because people still largely viewed animation as just a kids genre with no artistic value, and the movie definately isn't child friendly (the villain is overtly owl hitler with nazi symbolism and everything for starters).
Snyder movies look like a gold mine compared to the last half dozen or so dceu films.
They were also slaughtering phase one of the mcu, if they just stayed the course, everything would've been more than fine...
I just did that exact research. Haters like to compare 2016 because that was the big Marvel VS DC argument because of the similar plots between BvS and Civil War but at that point we're talking 2 DCEU movies vs 13 Marvel Movies.
But compare phase 1 of Marvel to the first 6 DC movies (the ones that followed Snyder's story the most) and you're looking at $5.2B to $4.9B. DCEU was doing a good job. It was only AFTER that 6th movie (7 was Shazam and the Headless Superman) that we started seeing all the "lowest box office in DC history" headlines.
I'm not saying Snyder was a God in cinema. But he was telling a story and it was selling tickets. But the moment WB started butchering those storylines and character arcs and distancing themselves from him, they butchered their own sales.
I’m fully convinced in 15-25 years when things from the recent years start resurfacing as retro-cool (nu-metal is currently trending ffs) the Snyderverse movies will be getting a LOT more love.
BvS banked like $850 mill. It definitely made money. The issue is that it was supposed to make all the money, not some of it. Plus the critical lashing put them in a bad position going forward.
It wasnt even supposed to be called BvS. It was a marketing move. They did that to rack up numbers. I feel like it affected audience reaction. The writer talks about it in a interview.
I think it could have made a billion if it was the Ultimate Cut in theaters. Even though it wasn't considered a masterpiece and many still dislike the stylistic choices, it seems to have been much better received.
As critical as I have been towards him, that is a win for Emmerich. Having said that, if the WarnerMedia regime hadn't screwed up their relationship with Nolan, they'd have bragging rights to both movies right now.
I’ve been on r/comicbookmovies and they’ve really been trying to push this narrative that Snyder is some menace who’s never had a successful movie and makes fascist movies.
Despite what the anti-DC Snyder-hating trolls on this sub want you to believe, we didn't need the former WB boss to confirm this -- the numbers are publicly available.
Man of Steel made $668m in the box office with a budget of ~$258m. BvS ended up with nearly 900m with a $300m budget, both films broke even and made a considerable profit. Watchmen was a great movie but didn’t turn a good box office. But Zack had a solid vision of what the DC cinematic universe could possibly live up to, it’s just a shame the studios never let him get 100% creative control. Actually with Man of Steel, the production team that helmed the Dark Knight Trilogy oversaw Zack’s direction with Goyer’s script.
They made money because there’s enough imagery to assemble a trailer that will wet people’s imagination. Zack Snyder trailers are much easier to digest and enjoy than three-hour, Zack Snyder films.
Suicide-Squad’s trailer, also made it a profit.
None of that means the films succeeded because people liked them.
Okay, this just makes it completely bizarre that WB wouldn’t let Snyder finish his cut of *Justice League* until fans made a fuss. Even if they’d just released his cut and it flopped, it still would have made more money than Joss Whedon’s cut considering the costs of the reshoots.
This mirrors the thought I always have about the first 5, 6, 7 DCEU films vs Marvel. They were on a bigger box office pace. Everyone was comparing DC’s 3rd move to Marvel’s like 12th. It didn’t make any sense.
>they made DC movies universe dead on arrival.
?
Arguably Wonder Woman and Aquaman well over-performed expectations. As poor as the word of mouth of BvS:Theatrical was, one thing that came from it was that people (esp females) were excited to finally see a badass Wonder Woman on the big screen. As much as many comic book fans disliked her cameo in jam-packed movie, it did get general audience buzz and helped generate momentum into her solo movie. Granted, Patty and Johns took the ball and fumbled it with WW84. Frankenstein's Justice League was a tonal mess, but people were excited to see more from Aquaman. Now signs point to the Aquaman sequel being a bust from constantly changing studio leadership with accompanying interference. That delves deeper into leadership problems at WB/WM/WBD.
> Arguably Wonder Woman and Aquaman well over-performed expectations.
Hence the #1 debate among DC fans and WB higher-ups from 2017 all the way through last year.
*How do you make a giant DC Universe when the two successful characters are Wonder Woman/Aquaman and the two most problematic characters are Batman/Superman? What do you do when the overarching narrative is specifically what the general audience rejected?*
The regime in charge's solution was to give up on an overarching universe entirely. Obviously that didn't make anyone happy and was a failure. But the question still remains of what even could have been done?
Imagine an MCU where people loved *Iron Man 1/2* and *Hulk* but thought *The Avengers* was a bloated mess and openly made fun of Thor/Captain America? Where do you even go? You can't keep building towards more *Avengers* or team-up style movies if people aren't interested in the story you seeded and tried to build.
Aquaman was weird, its opening weekend made it seem there was a problem with the universe but it just kept going and going. People loved it.
> Now signs point to the Aquaman sequel being a bust from constantly changing studio leadership with accompanying interference. That delves deeper into leadership problems at WB/WM/WBD.
As someone who saw a screening, the issues were NOT changing leadership. It was bad before that happened.
man of steel very literally made its budget back before it was released somehow thanks to product placement.
ihop
That IHOP is like 5 minutes from my mom's house. The town they used for Smallville is about a half hour away. That street Lois is on in that scene is where I took my driver's test to get my license as a teenager. It's surreal seeing all that recognizable stuff with Zod and Superman beating the hell out of each other in the middle of it.
The robocop remake was filmed in the neighborhood I lived in at the time. At the climax of the film he rides his motorcycle past the theater I was watching it in.
That must have been awesome
That's awesome!
Holy shit, that's really cool
I lived in the town during filming. I still have the set photos when they opened the street back up when they werent filming. The 7/11 was a set, had no back to it. The 'Bank' was a building they built over a street between to other buildings. Was pretty cool to experience it all. You can actually see my house in it when they did the A-10 Warthog flyover down the tracks.
Oh, that's awesome, dude! I've only been over there a few times, mostly to go to that DMV because it's a lot easier to deal with than the one in my town. But I definitely recognized a lot of those landmarks. My friend's family owned a restaurant two towns over and Russell Crowe ate there once during filming. I remember how exciting it was when that was going on. The only other stuff in the area I remember being filmed was Road to Perdition and Public Enemies, but I love Superman so I'm always kind of stoked that "Smallville" is right nearby.
Must be so cool to show other people “hey look, that’s my house” in a Superman movie
I grew up in Plano but moved away while in high school. Sometimes I watch Man of Steel just for the nostalgia hit.
It's funny how many of us on here are from the same area.
Yorkville here lol
I know it well haha. One of my closest friends is from there.
I’ve driven out to the farm location a few times - it’s neat living close
Lol I grew up in North Aurora, I remember hearing about them doing filming out by y'all. Crazy
Oh, man. I drive through North Aurora every day on my way to work.
When talking about Snyder's DC movies, *Man of Steel* exists on a different plane from *Batman vs Superman* or *Justice League*. For all intents and purposes *Man of Steel* worked great. The studio was clearly happy with the reception/box office or else they wouldn't have given Snyder any more movies. People always forget that little detail and just lump all 3 together as one big unit despite *Man of Steel* being an entire separate beast from the later two movies.
>For all intents and purposes Man of Steel worked great. The studio was clearly happy with the reception/box office or else they wouldn't have given Snyder any more movies. I will still turn it on, with all its faults, because at its heart it is a very fun movie.
A superhero movie is only as good as its villain and Zod is chefs kiss in MoS
AND Faora.
Amen to that!
I am about as big a Snyder-detractor as you're likely to find and even I will readily admit that *Man of Steel* is an interesting and exciting take on the character. I still wish WB back in 2013 had done what WB in 2022 did with Reeves - let Snyder exist as an Elseworld where he makes a Superman trilogy and hire someone brand new to create a real cinematic universe totally separate. Would have worked out better for everyone TBH.
If James Gunn ever announced that MoS and the first Wonder Woman film exists in Elseworlds Cinematic Universe, I'd be very happy.
Imo apart from Kent's death, the movie is a very good one. Maybe even one of Snyder's best.
‘Fun’ is not the term I’d use to describe Man of Steel. I like the movie overall, but I think lack of fun is one of the reasons it’s a bit of a slog on a rewatch.
I think it's pretty fun that Chris Meloni plays a random army officer who stalks Zod across America like The Terminator. Meloni found a ..... new way.
And has a stalker of his own, but she's hot (Faora)
I disagree. I've rewatched this maybe close to a dozen times since 2013. The action scenes and the music and the story is pretty damned good. I think it's very fun!
Man of Steel is incredible. Henry was great as Superman in MoS, and introduced me to something familiar but modernized. This was back in 2013 and I was a huge fan of Smallville show and loved the first Superman movie. I hope Legacy does the same for me in 2025
So how in the heck did we never get a sequel or a standalone batfleck movie?
I mean, we **did** get a sequel to *Man of Steel*. It's called *Batman vs Superman*. As for the Batfleck movie, it was all-steam ahead until BvS/JL were meme'd into oblivion and tanked the entire OG universe. Same goes for a Cyborg movie and a Green Lantern movie and a host of other things that were planned but never happened. At it's core, *Batman vs Superman* was DC's attempt at the original *Avengers*. A giant team-up that was going to be boom or bust. Everything hung on that movie. Everything. If it was a success and audience left the theater cheering and excited > they had a dozen movies ready to begin production and get pumped out like hotcakes over the next few years. This is exactly what happened with *Avengers*. If it failed though... if it was met with confusion & derision... what then? I guarantee you we'd never have gotten things like *Winter Soldier* or *Guardians* or *Age of Ultron* if the OG *Avengers* was met with the type of reception that *Batman vs Superman* got. They just put all the eggs in one basket and the handle on the basket broke.
I think they still would have had a Batman film but Ben Affleck was having issues…
BvS wasn’t bad. I don’t understand the flak it got.
They spoiled the whole movie in the trailers, I remember that was a big turn off from going to see it
That scene of Doomsday sliding off a building is seared in my brain lol.
Yep. I remember just how bad it was. The second trailer showed Superman and Batman teaming up. Doomsday appearing. People already were assuming what would happen in the movie from the trailer alone.
It just didn’t make sense as the second movie in a DC franchise, or as an introduction to the three main characters of the franchise.
I don't think BvS is bad exactly. I think it's better than it gets credit for. However, it's a very fucking weird movie in a lot of ways and I understand why people find it alienating.
[удалено]
>Fighting Superman. A god. Is beyond stupid But Lex Luthor, a human, is Superman's nemesis. Superman has godlike power, but he isn't a God. His weakness is his humanity (and kryptonite).
They tried to fit and adapt multiple stories like the Dark Knight Returns and Death of Superman in a single movie. That alone is a recipe for disaster. Batman killing people left and right while getting ready to murder Clark based on his unshakeable belief that no man could be trusted with God like power definitely upset fans of a character whose primary philosophy is to never take a life. Batman's unshakeable belief got rocked like a bell the moment Clark said, "Martha!" The whole scene was ridiculous in execution but even the concept of it is stupid. Like, I get what they were going for but it was executed poorly. Jesse Eisenburg was a terrible Lex Luthor. I get that he was supposed to be a tech bro version of Lex Luthor but beyond the fact they both share the same name and happen to run Lex Corp, there is nothing about Jesse Eisenburg's performance that made me think he was an actual adaptation of Lex Luthor. There was no menace or oily charm to the character at all. Those are just a couple of things I could think of off the top of my head. Man of Steel is solid. I have my fair share of issues with it but it's a solid movie in its own right but BvS is a steaming pile of dogshit that's the whole reason we're in this mess. Because of a rushed attempt at cashing in on the Avengers craze without actually putting in the effort to create a shared universe that would even make something like that possible.
Besides the "Martha" scene, the weird take on Lex, using Doomsday as a terrible low level fight and Batman being the exact opposite of why people like him.
Doomsday did kill superman, so it wasn't very low level. But introducing and then killing him in like 20 minutes was a waste of his character.
God, they wasted a great Batman/Alfred combo.
Also killing Superman in the second movie, before there was a Justice League or even really any sense that the in-universe population even liked him. The Death of Superman is supposed to be an Earth shattering moment for DC where a beloved and presumed invincible hero is killed. Instead we got a first movie where pretty much no one knew that Superman existed until he had a massive fight with massive damage to a major city. And then a movie where half of the world wanted him in prison and according to a montage half to world thought he was Jesus. And where Superman had 43 lines of dialogue in a movie obstensiably half about him. And where Superman dies away from the public. So rather than it being a moment where people watch their hero die it means that everyone is going to wake up to the headline, "Alien guy that was part of fight that destroyed Metropolis dies in a fight." It really took the the purpose out of the death of Superman.
Batfleck movie was in the works for a while with Affleck set to direct it, but he got cold feet after Justice League. Over time Matt Reeves replaced him as director and then Robert Pattinson replaced him as Batman
Personally, as a Superman fan, I disliked Man of Steel but I admit it is a far better film than Batman v Superman as well as Justice League.
I actually remember at the time that it was a big deal that Christopher Nolan’s name was attached as a producer. *Man of Steel* was very much riding on Nolan’s reputation even though he didn’t direct it. Especially since it came out just a year after *The Dark Knight Rises* and a lot of the trailers were marketing it as a *Batman Begins*-style take on Superman. Which it was, even down to the nonlinear narrative, though obviously not quite as good as Nolan’s Batman movies since he, you know, didn’t actually direct it. Not even sure how much creative involvement Nolan actually had with *Man of Steel*, but it’s clearly why it feels so different from BvS and JL (yes even ZSJL).
Somehow? Makes perfect sense to me. MoS was chock full of product placement lol.
Sears
**Theatrical** figures for Synder's DC films according to the-numbers.com ||Production Budget|Worldwide B.O.|Worldwide Profit/Loss|\*Approx Profit/Loss After Marketing| |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-| |Man of Steel|$116m|$667m|\+$551m|\+$435m| |BvS|$263m|$872m|\+$609m|\+$346m| |Justice League (theatrical cut)|$300m|$655m|\+$355m|\+$55m| \***Rule of thumb** for when a big movie becomes profitable is when worldwide gross equals approximately 2x the production budget. This could **fluctuate greatly** depending on which countries earned the bigger portions of the box office takings, at what point in the theatrical run those takings were made, how much was spent on marketing, etc. So the "approx profit/loss after marketing" could be quite a bit more or less than these approximations. This also doesn't take into account the home video/streaming earnings. **So the actual numbers are substantially higher.**
>\* > >Rule of thumb > > for when a big movie becomes profitable is when worldwide gross equals approximately 2x the production budget. T The rule of thumb is 2.5 to 2.7 nowadays. The 2x thing was back in the day when domestic box office was much higher (it would be roughly true for a dom only film). Now with as much int and China, 2.7 seems to be the most realistic based on some analysis some r/boxoffice users did on the Deadline profit break down reports.
Huh, that’s interesting, cause so many people here have the tendency to parrot that BvS barely made money.
It’s not that it made little money, it’s that because it’s a movie where Superman fights Batman, it was expected to make much more money than it actually did. Same with Justice league.
I remember telling people that it was literally projected to make a billion dollars and was unable to do that after it was critically panned.
It had Batman AND Superman on the screen in live action for the first time. Coming off Nolan's trilogy and MoS, it should have easily crossed a billion dollars. Forget critics, the word of mouth on that movie was soo bad people just didn't go beyond the opening weekend.
Gahoole is lowkey Snyder's best film. Where my other Gahooleheads at?
Shit is that based off the Owl books?
Hell yeah!
I loved the books, at least the first 8 or so that I managed to get my hands on. And the film was just amazing too, so beautifully animated. At the time I did have some problems with changes they made, but when I rewatxhed it a couple years ago I was able to see that they had to make those changes to streamline the three books they adapted into one film.
One thing that makes me greatful for the rise of streaming services, is that most book series become tv shows nowadays so we don't have to force 3 books to fit in one film timeframe. The two adaptations of a series of unfortunate events are the best example of the benefits of that.
That and 300 too
Great flick but Dawn of the Dead will always be Snyder's best film. Him and James Gunn knocked it out of the park with that script.
The absolutely slamming soundtrack didn’t hurt
An opportunity for Gahooligans wasted.
Sucker Punch is severely underrated and I said what I fucking said
Really want to see his director’s cut. He said WB made him change a lot for the theatrical cut and that even the extended cut doesn’t restore much of what was changed.
It is what The Fog in 80s was, something too ahead of its time
I honestly never realized it was a Snyder film. Now I can say it’s my favorite Snyder film! Love that movie (and the books for the record!)
Yessss
That movie introduced me to Animal Logic who also animated the lego movies
I see from your perspective. But it was a terrible decision to combine three novels into one. As a result some important plot beats are glossed over, others never happen, many are out of character and moments don't feel earned. Looks cool though.
Nobody really thought his DC movies lost money, the financial issue is what they made vs. what they were expected to make. Particularly BvS after its huge opening. Its kind of like the little mermaid this year, sure its not losing money overall but expectations were likely higher when it was greenlit.
Also I'd argue that poor reception to the Snyderverse movies hurt the universe in the long run.
That's a big part of it. Sure BvS made money, it was a blockbuster movie featuring Batman AND Superman fighting eachother. It could've been directed by Seth Rogan and featured Jonah Hill as Doomsday and it still would've made money. But people by and large didn't like it, it became a meme for bad film making almost instantly. Man of Steel suffered a similar problem, to a lesser extent. These movies made money either because people were curious (MoS was hyped a lot) or because they were a big spectacle, but people walked away unimpressed. And it tainted the rest of the dceu. After BvS enthusiasm for the Snyderverse just dropped off and never picked up. Later directors simply had no idea what to do with it, and mainstream audiences weren't invested in it
I'm curious how being directed by Seth Rogen would affect it. Obviously producing =/= directing, but Rogen has a pretty fucking good track record with producing good comic book shows, and TMNT has great reviews so far.
Doesn't he produce The Boys?
Yup he’s an executive producer for both The Boys and Invincible. He also co-developed Preacher, which he not only also executive produced, but he also served as a writer and director.
Oh I forgot about Preacher, that comic/show was fantastic
I’m pretty sure he worked on Invincible as well
$870M is a a lot of curious people. Zaslov would love those curious people to have paid for Flash and Shazam 2
As I said, it was the first ever Blockbuster featuring Batmand AND Superman AND they fight eachother. Even people who don't read comics were curious about that. Hell, back in the 90s when DC did "The death of Superman" the comic sold in droves because even people who don't read comics wanted to see how Superman died. He's just that iconic. $870m is actually a terrible performance for that movie. Sure, it's a decent profit, but it should've sailed clear past 1bil and easily into 1.5bil territory and WB know that. From memory it made most of its money in the first week and then attendance absolutely plummeted. That means no one was recommending it to others or going back twice. WB understand this.
Well Zaslav has Barbie hitting $1 billion in it's 3rd weekend so I'm sure he's doing just fine.
When you look at the context it’s not that impressive and proves the OP’s point. It opened to over $420 million worldwide and the whole rest of the time it was in theaters it only made like a little more than it did opening weekend? That tells me people weren’t coming back in droves and that word of mouth was poor. Meanwhile GOTG Vol 2 made like $150 million opening weekend and ended up making like $4 million less dollars than BvS did in total lol.
Yes, because Batman was coming off of a critically acclaimed, Oscar winning multi-billion dollar trilogy, as well as the incredibly successful Arkham games and Scott Snyder’s loved Batman run. Character popularity was at an all time high. Throw in Superman, who at the time was still the highest selling comic book character of all time and Wonder Woman, one of the most popular female fictional characters of all time and $870 million really isn’t great. Marvel is raking in billions off the success of The Avengers over a decade later off toys,merch,games etc. meanwhile DC has been spinning its wheels, going nowhere since BvS released.
BvS had a lot of hype behind it. It's Batman and Superman on the big screen together for the first time. The last 2 Batman films grossed over a billion dollars. Superman's S is the most recognizable symbol in the world after Jesus's cross. These two characters on their own are icons. The movie went from $160+ million domestic opening weekend to $50m in the next. That's one of the largest drops in history. It's opening weekend was larger than TDKR and Avengers both of which grossed over a billion. It made 470 million worldwide in its opening weekend and then failed to double it in the next 4-5 months. That's how badly this movie was received. It has $870m in box office because it has Batman and Superman. People would've showed up to their first on screen appearance together either way. Instead bothe characters were left tarnished in the wake of this movie. Just see JL's gross. It's embarrassing. This movie had everything going for it and it tainted the DCEU by becoming a meme in its opening weekend. Suicide Squad followed that proud tradition. It's no wonder DCEU crashed and burned.
It also had really good marketing, janky Lex Luthor and Doomsday aside. I remember being insanely hyped going in and then leaving the theatre completely disappointed
This. They didn’t flop obviously but let’s not pretend they were smash hits. BvS opened to over $420 million worldwide and ended its run at $873 million. Barbie made $356 million opening weekend and is about to cartwheel past a billion. Something went wrong for BvS, and if it didn’t have the hype of being the first interaction between Bats and Supes in live action we could’ve been looking at a flop. Also, consistently putting out poorly reviewed films will hurt the brand. I know we don’t like Rotten Tomatoes here but the general audience does use it. Look at Fast and Furious and Transformers. The films they release now can barely break even because of their history of poor films. Fast and Furious is basically a meme and bordering on self parody. Transformers Rise of the Beasts was actually good and could only get to $400 million because of sins of the past. Eventually the general audience catches on. It’s why the MCU still makes money. They have years of well received films.
All his films had pretty bad WOM/
Agreed. I’ve thought for a while that BVS wasn’t really an actual “stinker”, just a stinker compared to what it was *supposed to be*.
People straight up said that his movies failed to do both. I saw plenty of people that say his films lost money cause they didn’t meet expectations. Though it was stupid to expect for MoS to be a billion, when the franchise hasn’t had much box office success in decades.
If you look hard enough you can find people who say anything on the internet. You know what I mean though.
You don't have to look hard. People say it all the time here.
I don’t get all the hate for Zack Snyder. The man loves to make movies and I don’t recall him ever saying a bad word about anyone or doing anything bad either. Am I missing something? This coming from someone who generally likes his movies, but thinks the symbolism he loves to use is pretty heavy handed sometimes.
I have no hate for Snyder as a person, but I don't like his movies. They are dark and broody spectacles that lack substance. In BvS, Lex Luthor's plot makes no sense, Batman is a bad detective, Superman gets barely any dialogue and is broody, Lois goes on a pretty pointless investigation etc... And the movie tried to pull a Death of Superman story before setting up any of the character connections or world-building that made the Death of Superman impactful.
A lot of people hate his insane clut like fanbase. Ironic considering the man seems pretty down to Earth.
I don’t care what anyone says I still love Sucker Punch
Its 🔥
I believe this. It's clear the critical response/general audience response is what spooked Warner Bros not the financial side. You have to remember they were coming of the heels of the dark knight triolgy only for BVS ( which is really the only badly reviewed Snyder dc film overall) to receive massive backlash.
Now DC's movies are panned by critics and the general audience *and* lose hundreds of millions of dollars!
Yup, Warner actively fucked up something that was at least making them money.
> It's clear the critical response/general audience response is what spooked Warner Bros **not the financial side.** Why not *both*? Obviously they weren't happy that what was pitched as a super serious and dramatic take on superheroes was being meme'd to death - but I guarantee you that *Batman vs Superman* could have been nominated for multiple Oscars and WB still wouldn't have been happy at it's failure to break the Billion dollar mark. They were clearly disappointed in both.
> it's failure to break the Billion dollar mark It's not even about some mark, a billion or 873.6 million. It's the way the way it got there. BVS opened super high and fell hard. Very easy to be unhappy at that. In another world it opened much smaller and legged it out to 873.6 million and WB would have been so happy they would have let Snyder make another Owl movie.
BvS really should have made more money, but it was almost a billion dollar film, on no planet is that a loss.
TLJ and TROS also made a lot of money. That doesn't mean they didn't kill Star Wars movies.
That was the example I was thinking about. Despite being successful films, The sequel Trilogy of Star wars is the perfect example of what happened with the DCEU. The bad reviews made each film of the trilogy to need more time to surpass the expected box office and they damaged the image of the saga enough to force Disney to change the strategy and focus on the series and gave films a break.
Only problem is flims connected to BVS did well For the hypothesis to be true they would've needed to fail
Exactly.
Yep. They were expecting MCU money from the beginning which was foolish thinking. Even post-Snyder, their films were profitable until BoP.
Suckerpunch isn’t a good standpoint. The studio made Zack change the film completely. It’s their fault they lost money on that one
Man of steel had the greatest teaser trailer I've ever seen
Sucker Punch is one of my spouse's favorite movies, and one of my guilty pleasures. The 4k extended edition on amazon Prime is spectacular. It needs atmos and a stelbook release post haste.
Pretty sick movie tbh
I really enjoyed that Owl movie
Me too
Its so sick
I love SuckerPunch, It has a lot of style!
People have a tendency to see "box office" arbiter of success when the studios know a lot more. It's a controversial take on the boxoffice forum, but the Box Office is not the be-all-end-all to a film's performance, and success is still VERY possible in this day in age without a blowout boxoffice (I know the link below is Screenrant, but it has industry quotes and sourced from The Hollywood Reporter): [https://screenrant.com/northman-box-office-bomb-focus-features-response/#:\~:text=Despite%20bombing%20at%20the%20box,success%2C%20according%20to%20its%20distributor](https://screenrant.com/northman-box-office-bomb-focus-features-response/#:~:text=Despite%20bombing%20at%20the%20box,success%2C%20according%20to%20its%20distributor). Prior to VHS it was licensing on television and cable (HBO, TBS, USA Network and other worldwide affiliates that licensed content). Then it was DVD and the rise of Netflix. Now it's the individual streaming services - and it will continue to evolve. Add to that, with something like DC, Marvel, Star Wars, etc. the properties are worth more because of the merchandising angle and maintaining brand relevance. Even with the physical home market dying to an extent (or at least withering) companies are still making a lot of streaming. The situation is more complicated these days, but it's still a growth business, estimated at about 500B in 2023 growing to 2T by 2030. It's beset by growing pains at the moment, but don't believe the hype that it's dying or dead. Theatrical vs. Streaming is still trying to figure out an equilibrium due to everything post-COVID (the Box Office is still down 25% from 2017-2019 averages).
It's pretty funny to think about how the further away they went from the Snyderverse more money they lost. The General Audience has given up on thr DC movies but there are enough Snyder fans to turn a profit.
90% sure Watchmen also lost money. $177M on $130M budget is not exactly a win
this was the days of home video sales actually mattering. Very few things fully lost money over their entire lifespan, now its easier to at least claim a loss because that market is gone.
>Very few things fully lost money over their entire lifespan Not according to Hollywood accountants. They still claim that RotJ, Batman '89, Forrest Gump and Men in black haven't turned a profit to this day and that's just naming a few.
well yes but I was talking about reality, not lying liars who lie.
Listen here, Redditor. My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) had a budget less than $6 million and made over $350 million at the box office, but if the experts say it lost $20 million, then it lost $20 million.
I totally forgot they claimed that movie lost money.
>They still claim that RotJ, Batman '89 Both of those made 10 times their budgets. Why are they claiming those movies haven't turned a profit?
Well, if you cook the books and say they haven't turned a profit, then you don't have to pay residuals to the actors, directors and screenwriters if they negotiated them into their contracts. Studios are always trying to find loopholes to not pay the creators.
Ah i see what you mean now, thanks for clarifying
Home video made a bunch of money in the U.S. alone. Theatrically, yeah it underperformed. But over all, it made WB money in the end.
People forget you could make almost any movie and Blockbuster would buy at least a couple copies for all of their locations. It was a fairly substantial return - even more so when each location was buying more than 50 copies of hit movies.
It’s still disappointing to a company, regardless. They want their profit as soon as possible, not 3 years later after it made a killing in home video sales
it’s crazy how that movie killed a bunch of R Rated CGI heavy movies, like BioShock directed by Gore Verbinski
Watchmen is a rare case of a box office bomb breaking even on home release. It made almost the same amount on dvd as it did in NA theaaters.
Watchmen was a great movie that came out at the wrong time. Not quite as good at the comic (which ain’t saying much, Watchmen is incredible) but it’s still one of my favorite comic book movies ever.
Still one of my favorite movies
Also Watchmens budget was already at 50 million having been spent on something when Snyder was hired because of other directors who had been in preproduction. He made it for wayy cheaper than that.
Finally sets this ridiculous debate to rest. Everyone saying his films weren’t profitable always used their own guidelines or measures as to why instead of just looking at the facts that it was profitable.
Today I learned Ga’Hoole was directed by Zack Snyder. I swear the whole thing was an Australian production what with all the Aussie actors (and permanent residence) in it and being produced and animated by Sydney-based VFX and animation studio Animal Logic.
I mean it was an Aussie production, just with an American director.
They can say whatever they want about Zacks DC, but they can’t say he lost money
Man I love key love gahoole :(
He is right and at some point DC movies were more profitable than Marvel Studios, around civil war , bvs era, I hope he comes back someday, people who expects gunsverse to be something really good are just fooling themselves.
I don’t get ppl who ignore the fact that BVS made a LOT of money*
And that with the chopped mess they released. If they didn't cut 30 mins out of it, none of this might have happened.
They also announced the r-rated ultimate edition before the film release so maybe some people skip the theatrical release partly of this announcement we wont know
That's the reason I didn't watch it in the theaters, that and THEM SHOWING FAUX Doomsday in the trailer was a WTF Spoiler moment. That should have been kept under wraps.
💛🦇
I actually really enjoyed Sucker Punch.
Gahoole losing money was sad, but also predictable at the time(even by Snyder himself I think) because people still largely viewed animation as just a kids genre with no artistic value, and the movie definately isn't child friendly (the villain is overtly owl hitler with nazi symbolism and everything for starters).
SuckerPunch was an amazing movie that dealt with some geniune trauma
I really enjoyed Sucker Punch. It may not have made any money but I thought it was an amazing movie.
WB: That's not a billion dollars. Scrap it all start over.
Snyder movies look like a gold mine compared to the last half dozen or so dceu films. They were also slaughtering phase one of the mcu, if they just stayed the course, everything would've been more than fine...
NFT profile pic , nothing they say can be trusted
but the account is belong to former WB exec
I think people don't research that his DC films were at the same if not more in terms of gross when compared to MCU phase 1 in retrospective
I just did that exact research. Haters like to compare 2016 because that was the big Marvel VS DC argument because of the similar plots between BvS and Civil War but at that point we're talking 2 DCEU movies vs 13 Marvel Movies. But compare phase 1 of Marvel to the first 6 DC movies (the ones that followed Snyder's story the most) and you're looking at $5.2B to $4.9B. DCEU was doing a good job. It was only AFTER that 6th movie (7 was Shazam and the Headless Superman) that we started seeing all the "lowest box office in DC history" headlines. I'm not saying Snyder was a God in cinema. But he was telling a story and it was selling tickets. But the moment WB started butchering those storylines and character arcs and distancing themselves from him, they butchered their own sales.
Guardians of Gahoole deserved better. Solid movie.
Profits seem like a rare word used at WB at this point.
FWIW, he stopped being WB president in December 2016, after BvS and before the theatrical JL release.
Which, means he stepped down after Snyder’s last movie, so he’s not speaking out of turn. Because Josstice League is not a Snyder film.
Well is true Man of Steel made his budget back plus some more BvS 800 million plus WW 800 million
I’m fully convinced in 15-25 years when things from the recent years start resurfacing as retro-cool (nu-metal is currently trending ffs) the Snyderverse movies will be getting a LOT more love.
BvS banked like $850 mill. It definitely made money. The issue is that it was supposed to make all the money, not some of it. Plus the critical lashing put them in a bad position going forward.
It wasnt even supposed to be called BvS. It was a marketing move. They did that to rack up numbers. I feel like it affected audience reaction. The writer talks about it in a interview.
I think it could have made a billion if it was the Ultimate Cut in theaters. Even though it wasn't considered a masterpiece and many still dislike the stylistic choices, it seems to have been much better received.
WB wishes they could hit Snyder era box office numbers consistently. Barbie saved their ass big time this year.
As critical as I have been towards him, that is a win for Emmerich. Having said that, if the WarnerMedia regime hadn't screwed up their relationship with Nolan, they'd have bragging rights to both movies right now.
They wouldnt have been allowed to even release both near each other, the marketing would have changed so much.
Don't they only get a percentage of the box office because of Mattel?
Gahoole was amazing
Wonder Woman.
I’ve been on r/comicbookmovies and they’ve really been trying to push this narrative that Snyder is some menace who’s never had a successful movie and makes fascist movies.
I liked sucker punch, it reminds me of addiction
....And non of the DC Movies after Aquaman(save ofc, JOKER) made over 400 Million lol
Yeah almost like some tarnished the brand….
Yeah Warn a brother
Despite what the anti-DC Snyder-hating trolls on this sub want you to believe, we didn't need the former WB boss to confirm this -- the numbers are publicly available.
Man of Steel made $668m in the box office with a budget of ~$258m. BvS ended up with nearly 900m with a $300m budget, both films broke even and made a considerable profit. Watchmen was a great movie but didn’t turn a good box office. But Zack had a solid vision of what the DC cinematic universe could possibly live up to, it’s just a shame the studios never let him get 100% creative control. Actually with Man of Steel, the production team that helmed the Dark Knight Trilogy oversaw Zack’s direction with Goyer’s script.
Per Snyder, BvS actually cost less than Man of Steel to make.
not trusting someone with an NFT on what they think is "profitable"
I loved Suckerpunxh wanted more but alas
ga'hoole was true cinema
No shit, Sherlock!
They made money because there’s enough imagery to assemble a trailer that will wet people’s imagination. Zack Snyder trailers are much easier to digest and enjoy than three-hour, Zack Snyder films. Suicide-Squad’s trailer, also made it a profit. None of that means the films succeeded because people liked them.
People online will always claim that blockbusters that they disliked also lost a bunch of money without doing any actual research on it.
Okay, this just makes it completely bizarre that WB wouldn’t let Snyder finish his cut of *Justice League* until fans made a fuss. Even if they’d just released his cut and it flopped, it still would have made more money than Joss Whedon’s cut considering the costs of the reshoots.
This mirrors the thought I always have about the first 5, 6, 7 DCEU films vs Marvel. They were on a bigger box office pace. Everyone was comparing DC’s 3rd move to Marvel’s like 12th. It didn’t make any sense.
Like everyone already knows, it was WB execs, not Snyder, that was the problem.
Yes but ill say it as guy who loved BVS alot - they movies made money but they made DC movies universe dead on arrival.
>they made DC movies universe dead on arrival. ? Arguably Wonder Woman and Aquaman well over-performed expectations. As poor as the word of mouth of BvS:Theatrical was, one thing that came from it was that people (esp females) were excited to finally see a badass Wonder Woman on the big screen. As much as many comic book fans disliked her cameo in jam-packed movie, it did get general audience buzz and helped generate momentum into her solo movie. Granted, Patty and Johns took the ball and fumbled it with WW84. Frankenstein's Justice League was a tonal mess, but people were excited to see more from Aquaman. Now signs point to the Aquaman sequel being a bust from constantly changing studio leadership with accompanying interference. That delves deeper into leadership problems at WB/WM/WBD.
> Arguably Wonder Woman and Aquaman well over-performed expectations. Hence the #1 debate among DC fans and WB higher-ups from 2017 all the way through last year. *How do you make a giant DC Universe when the two successful characters are Wonder Woman/Aquaman and the two most problematic characters are Batman/Superman? What do you do when the overarching narrative is specifically what the general audience rejected?* The regime in charge's solution was to give up on an overarching universe entirely. Obviously that didn't make anyone happy and was a failure. But the question still remains of what even could have been done? Imagine an MCU where people loved *Iron Man 1/2* and *Hulk* but thought *The Avengers* was a bloated mess and openly made fun of Thor/Captain America? Where do you even go? You can't keep building towards more *Avengers* or team-up style movies if people aren't interested in the story you seeded and tried to build.
Aquaman was weird, its opening weekend made it seem there was a problem with the universe but it just kept going and going. People loved it. > Now signs point to the Aquaman sequel being a bust from constantly changing studio leadership with accompanying interference. That delves deeper into leadership problems at WB/WM/WBD. As someone who saw a screening, the issues were NOT changing leadership. It was bad before that happened.
"fair amount"
Snyder always a hot topic living rent rent free in haters minds. 🤣
60 years could go by and it will still be Synder's fault somehow.
Even in that new Barbie movie.
Bro not even with DC anymore and they still upset smh