So a little math and numbers never hurt nobody, that likes to take their time and do the work.
DC and Warner’s do not have a good image coming from their Justice League movie, released almost a month ago, bad opening weekend and overall Box Office disappointment for a movie featuring major players. My theory is that assemble movies are no longer a guarantee box office billion and half vehicles. You can see that in Age of Ultron and Civil War featuring all of the Avengers from 2012 plus a lot more new characters added over the years. From 1.5 Billion to 1.153 B, even though Civil War is considered a solo Captain America movie it did feature a lot of characters and two brand new ones that hyped the movies additionally.
Anyway we aren’t here to discuss this specifically, we are here to look at both MCU and DCEU’s first 6 movies in terms success or failure.
One is called a smash the other is called a flop. In reality thought, things are pretty even at the moment considering that is DCEU’s 5th movie with Aquaman still not released to form a solid 6 movie line up. Still DC hasn’t made a big splash monetary with their Justice League franchise as their greedy bosses expected to happen and get their Xmas and annual bonuses for it, and we hope they do not get any.
Sorry Kevin and Jon, this ain’t how you impress DC fans, with rushed FX and cutting scenes left and right for the sake of catching a date. But in any scenario, the media would have you believe that DC is this huge flop and Marvel is on top of Mount Rushmore, which isn’t exactly true.
Here is how its currently looking financially, with 4 weeks in cinema Justice League has made 614 Million worldwide more or less, far away from
1.5 Billion almost double the numbers down, this is a fact. However the DCEU as a franchise has managed to make a combined
3,723,398,842 Billion dollars wordwide, in its first 5 movies, compared to MCU first 6 movies for
3,811,244,484, Billion worldwide. This is less than a
100 Million dollars difference for DC. We are not including here any future box office results for Justice League and their 6
th movie Aquaman to conclude a 6 vs 6 movies from both companies.
With the upcoming DC line up, we can see
The Justice League will not be DC’s phase indicator, so for the sake of conversation we will discuss movie for movie in each franchise’s own timeline [date of release].
So if we compare the above mentioned we have
3,723 B vs 3,811 in a 5 vs 6 movies, with the latter having the biggest grossing comic book movie of all time and only fresh movies on RT and DC having only one fresh movie from these 5 and one movie missing plus one still in cinema.
Let’s assume the worst and have Justice League end up around 664 Million, then the number would be
3,773 B vs 3, 811 B, still a difference of
40 Million in favor of MCU, but with DC pending one movie Aquaman to form the first 6 movies in their franchise. So Aquaman needs to make 40 Million in the BO for a tie, that tie would be 6 for 6 movies, one highly critically appraised and with the biggest super hero grossing movie of all time [unadjusted] vs the worst scored super hero movies and Wonder Woman, right?
Ok, now I will factor in another angle which is time when those movies were released in, since Iron Man came out in 2008 and MOS in 2013, a ticket in 2008 costed
7.18 USD vs
8.13 USD in 2013, so the MCU apologist will probably say “
see DC still making less”, ok then I will look as their respective years and prices for tickets and their box office and count the seats sold in the respective year.
MCU first 6 movies based on their BO and price for a ticket in the year released have sold the following number of tickets:
491,466,040 seats vs DCEU [No Aquaman] 430,181,379 seats,
so
Aquaman needs to sell
61 Million seats worldwide, which will mean it will perform monetary like the first
Thor movie, which sold 56 Million seats. Now don’t get me wrong, but I think
Aquaman will perform much better than Thor. I have developed a few scenarios for you at different prices for a ticket in 2018.
Here is your detailed box office performance for all MCU and DCEU movies per franchise and date of release.
|
DCEU first 6 movies |
WorldWide Gross |
Year |
Ticket Price |
Sold seats |
|
Man of Steel |
668,045,518 |
2013 |
8.13 USD |
82,170,420 |
|
Batman V Superman : DOJ |
873,260,194 |
2016 |
8.65 USD |
100,954,935 |
|
Suicide Squad |
745,600,054 |
2016 |
8.65 USD |
86,196,538 |
|
Wonder Woman |
821,763,408 |
2017 |
8.93 USD |
92,022,778 |
|
*Justice League |
614,729,668 |
2017 |
8.93 USD |
68,836,708 |
|
Aquaman |
0 |
2018 |
0 |
0 |
|
Total USD |
3,723,398,842 |
|
|
430,181,379 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
MCU first 6 movies |
WorldWide Gross |
Year |
Ticket Price |
Sold seats |
|
Iron Man |
585,174,222 |
2008 |
7.18 USD |
81,500,588 |
|
The Incredible Hulk |
263,427,551 |
2008 |
7.18 USD |
36,689,073 |
|
Iron Man 2 |
623,933,331 |
2010 |
7.89 USD |
79,079,002 |
|
Thor |
449,326,618 |
2011 |
7.93 USD |
56,661,616 |
|
Captain America: The First Avenger |
370,569,774 |
2011 |
7.93 USD |
46,730,110 |
|
The Avengers |
1,518,812,988 |
2012 |
7.96 USD |
190,805,651 |
|
Total USD |
3,811,244,484 |
|
|
491,466,040 |
* Still playing in cinemas
Here you can see the worldwide gross, how much a ticket costed in the respective year and how many seats they sold based on it.
And here is some possible scenarios for 2018’s Aquaman and possible box office performances for the movie, based on the genre.
|
Aquaman performance |
Ticket Price |
Sold seats |
Worldwide gross |
|
if it performs like MOS |
9 |
82,170,420 |
739,533,780 |
|
if it performs like MOS |
9.12 |
82,170,420 |
749,394,230 |
|
if it performs like MOS |
9.21 |
82,170,420 |
756,789,569 |
|
if it perfomrs like BVS |
9 |
100,954,935 |
908,594,415 |
|
if it perfomrs like BVS |
9.12 |
100,954,935 |
920,709,007 |
|
if it perfomrs like BVS |
9.21 |
100,954,935 |
929,794,951 |
|
if it performs like WW |
9 |
92,022,778 |
828,205,002 |
|
if it performs like WW |
9.12 |
92,022,778 |
839,247,735 |
|
if it performs like WW |
9.21 |
92,022,778 |
847,529,785 |
|
if it performs like Suicide Squad |
9 |
86,196,538 |
775,768,842 |
|
if it performs like Suicide Squad |
9.12 |
86,196,538 |
786,112,426 |
|
if it performs like Suicide Squad |
9.21 |
86,196,538 |
793,870,114 |
|
If it performs like Thor |
9 |
56,661,616 |
509,954,544 |
|
If it performs like Thor |
9.12 |
56,661,616 |
516,753,937 |
|
If it performs like Thor |
9.21 |
56,661,616 |
521,853,483 |
|
if it performs like TIH |
9.21 |
36,689,073 |
337,906,362 |
I added 3 possible trends for the price of the ticket, based on the inflation trends. And that’s 9 USD, 9.12 USD and 9.21 USD.
If Aquaman is a flop and performs like The Incredible Hulk, it will end up with 337 M and still put in DCEU monetary over Marvel, but with less seats sold, so less people enjoying it in cinemas, less fans. If Aquaman performs like MOS, BVS, WW or SS or even Thor, DC would be with both more seats sold and more BO money accumulated, so you can browse all scenarios.
Even with DC getting a bad wrap, they are still selling a respectable number of tickets to people. In both cases I think those phase 1 numbers, approach and tactics were necesesary to find what works and what doesn’t for each studio. In WB, what doesn’t work is management and people handling decisions like their CEO Kevin Tsujihara, producers like Jon Berg, who practically slept on the set of Justice League and we stil got a crap movie that is neither’s directors tone of movie.
Do not touch Wan’s, Reeves’s, Jenkin’s, O Connors’s movies and will should be ok, no cutting or interference. If you do, then its fan rage and no more support and then BYE for life. But please guys, do not mistake the power of DC in the right hands. You see even with a negative image they are going neck for neck with the golden child, so imagine a good critical reception and we will discuss Phase 2 vs Phase 2 in some years!