Justice League disappoints at the box office

Justice League underperformed at the box office during its opening weekend, bringing in $96 million domestically for a worldwide total of over $281 million to date worldwide. That was enough to top the charts for the weekend, but fell short of expectations.

This is what Variety had to say about the opening of Batman V Superman after that film’s first weekend:

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice steamrolled past records, debuting to a gargantuan $170.1 million over Easter weekend despite being pilloried by critics. That ranks as the top opening weekend for a DC Comics film, the best March launch ever and the sixth-biggest domestic opening weekend of all-time.

Justice League has provided the lowest opening of any movie in the Warner Bros. DC Cinematic Universe films so far, and it’s unlikely that the film’s lukewarm word of mouth is going to help move the needle in the medium to longterm. Justice League isn’t terrible — I personally enjoyed it much more than I was expecting to — but audiences may be exhausted by DC films that don’t star Gal Gadot.

Depending on the box office receipts of the next few weeks, this disappointing opening could put more pressure on Warner Bros. to adjust its strategy when it comes to movies that have historically bombed with critics while finding commercial success. If the commercial success is slipping? There’s not much left in terms of a bright side.