I Really Hate Writing About Box Office
The World is On Fire. Why Do I Care How Much Money Superman Makes?
Originally published at Patreon.
The movie I am looking forward to the most in 2025 is James Gunn’s Superman. Based on a character I love, the film hails from the guy I think is the most consistently great superhero director of the “Marvel Era” which, whether or not you liked Zack Snyder’s movies (I mostly did!), is what the last 17 years or so has been.
What I'm not looking forward to is writing, and talking, and thinking, about the movie's box office and what that means for the future of DC.
The current projections are promising for Superman, which is projected to open at over $150 million. Should that happen, it will be one of the biggest openings ever for a DC movie. Even Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which went on to make more than $900 million, opened at $166 million, which is right around the midpoint of the current projections for Gunn's movie, which Box Office Theory thinks could go as high as $175 million.
Of course, early projections were pretty bullish on The Flash, too, and that movie turned out to be a disaster that spelled the end of DC's previous attempt at a shared universe.
In any case, I hate the way that so much of film journalism -- especially in the genre/fandom space -- is about box office. I hate being part of the discourse...which I have, many times, during my time at places like ComicBook and Screen Rant.
It isn't even that I hate writing about box office failures. Sometimes, those are more fun to write about than the successes. After all, who didn't get a little bit of entertainment out of the way Sony fundamentally misunderstood why Morbius imploded, or Dakota Johnson seemed to openly hate Madame Web? I just feel like framing art through the lens of commerce implies that only profitable movies are worth making.
That is self-evidently not true. There are a lot of movies -- some of my favorites -- that lost money at the box office, only to become cult classics. Josie and the Pussycats only made about half of its reported budget during its first run in theaters, and I literally wrote the book on that movie.
In fact, back around that time, Universal seemed to have one of those movies every five years or so: something that was highly-touted, well-publicized, but just...didn't find its audience. Then, it went to home video and became a sensation. Examples include Tremors, Mallrats, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.
There's an argument to be made that with the end of the video store and the diminishing value of the home video market as a whole, it has become virtually impossible for an expensive movie to make a meaningful return on its investment on disc. That changes the math, which has made box office success more important than ever and thus supercharged the amount of reporting that focuses on the film's performance. Even then, just being successful doesn't make a film good, and losing money doesn't mean it's bad. You're probably thinking of a half-dozen examples that disprove these ideas without me even mentioning them.
So, marginally employed as I am, I'm not planning to write very much about Superman's box office journey -- or any other movie's -- unless it's relevant to something else I want to write about more. As long as I'm my own boss, why not take advantage of that?
The good news, for those who want some context: Signs are pointing in the direction of a solid performance for Superman.
Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy was viewed as a commercial gamble for Marvel, which had recently been bought out by Disney when Guardians was announced. It stood apart from the projects the studio had been known for up to that point, which starred characters familiar to the general audience.
Gunn’s indie film roots and punk-rock aesthetic really helped make Guardians a special movie (and, ultimately, a special series) for Marvel Studios, and the first movie, released in 2014, was widely regarded as a big commercial risk for Marvel and Disney at the time…only to become one of the most beloved movies they ever made.
That "risky" proposition turned into a huge win for Marvel and Disney, with Guardians of the Galaxy turning out three hugely successful films, a Disney+ special, a video game, two different animated series, and three best-selling film soundtracks. The success of Gunn's film reshaped how the characters are perceived both in pop culture broadly and in the comics community, where the team has been rebranded as lovable losers not unlike the movie's version. Its success was such that, when Disney flirted with the idea of kicking Gunn off the franchise, Warner Bros. jumped at the chance to bring him over to make a superhero movie with them.
Gunn's The Suicide Squad might not have been a huge commercial hit -- for a variety of reasons, including the COVID pandemic's impact on theaters and a day-and-date streaming release -- but it did something that few tentpole blockbusters seem able to do these days: it came on time and on-budget. It also received some of the best reviews of Warner's now-defunct DC Extended Universe, and set the stage for Peacemaker, which proved to be a true rarity: a hit show for HBO Max.
Other recent stories to check out from Russ Burlingame:
Josie and the Pussycats Directors Return to Feature Films With "Guys With No Friends"
Kevin Smith To Sign Archie Meets Jay & Silent Bob in July Appearance