Monday Morning Quarterback Part I

By BOP Staff

March 29, 2016

Don't worry, everyone. I probably won't destroy your city as collateral damage when I fight the vi

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Felix Quinonez: If we're just talking about the opening weekend, then I would say this is a great result. Sure, it could have and maybe should have been higher, but $166 million in three days is pretty amazing. It's in the top 10 opening weekends, and it set new records for a DC property, Warner Bros, and for the month of March. But that just shows that people were excited for it. How it holds up next weekend will depend on what they actually thought about the movie. And I don't think it's looking good for Batman v Superman.

I still haven't seen the movie, so I can't pass judgement on the quality of it. But that alone says a lot. I'm a huge DC comics fan - Superman is my favorite - and yet I felt absolutely no desire to rush out and see it on its opening weekend. The fact is, to me, none of the trailers looked great. I wasn't a fan of Man of Steel and the reviews are atrocious. (29% at Rotten Tomatoes) But it doesn't seem like the people who saw it are raving about it. Its "B" cinema score is not very encouraging. Even Man of Steel had a better grade with "A-" And we all know that movie didn't hold very well at all. And I don't think Batman v Superman will do any better.




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Ryan Kyle: Let's face it -- this movie was always going to open huge and $166 million is a jaw-dropping number. However, the real challenge for this critical turkey will be seeing if it has any legs. Word-of-mouth has been venomous and already about $20M-$30M has been shaved off from early Friday morning predictions of this film flying high to $190 million down to $165 million by Sunday night. I'll be fascinated to see if this film can outgross Deadpool, or if it will collapse. WB was wise moving this from the summer to March as the next two weeks are devoid of any competition. However, I still don't see that factoring into a second week drop less than 60%.

Michael Lynderey: I think it's a great number and that shouldn't be downplayed. But I also think that a film with this concept could have opened to well over $200 million (and in a wild coincidence, $200 mil was exactly my prediction). After all, if seeing Iron Man, the Hulk, and Thor together got people excited, teaming up BATMAN and SUPERMAN, two of the three biggest superheroes in American history, should be (and is) a license to print an essentially unlimited amount of money. In fact, I think if the reviews had been at, say, 50% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes instead of 30%, people who aren't that invested in the characters would have signed on and the opening would have passed $200 million.

As for the reviews, I think this film is definitely overpanned (I liked it more than the Avengers, which I wasn't a fan of). Actually, while most critics don't like it, the 29% "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" Tomatoes summary makes the movie seem a lot scarier than what the median rating for it actually is - 5 out of 10 on RT, which is not very low, especially compared to, say, 3.4 out of 10 for Fantastic Four (or look at the 6.5 out of 10 for Eddie the Eagle, which has a 77% RT rating - 29% to 77% is a huge difference; 5/10 to 6.5/10 is not, which shows you the flaw of the Tomato system).

I'm sure it'll drop big next weekend, but given the inherent fanboy heaven concept here, I think B v S will still get more than its share of rewatches in the next several weeks, especially with that quieter release schedule.


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