Justice League closes theatrical run as worst-performing DCEU movie

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

The hopes for JUSTICE LEAGUE to be massive were unbelievably high right out of the gate. Meant to be the DC Extended Universe’s answer to THE AVENGERS, this movie brought heroes Batman (Ben Affleck), The Flash (Ezra Miller), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Superman (Henry Cavill), Cyborg (Ray Fisher), and Aquaman (Jason Momoa) together to fight to fight someone with mother issues. But now the movie is officially out of theaters, and what was meant to be the DECU’s biggest hit has closed it’s run as the franchise’s lowest-grossing film.

LEAGUE, from director Zack Snyder, is now completely out of theaters and it’s domestic run finished at about $229 million, far lower than the next lowest, MAN OF STEEL, which made around $291 million. On the global front, the movie still has the lowest total, making $657 million to STEEL’s $668 million. The ranking goes BATMAN V. SUPERMAN ($873 million global), WONDER WOMAN ($821 million global), and SUICIDE SQUAD ($746 million global), followed by STEEL and LEAGUE.

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Sadly, the movie’s box office run never took off the way Warner Bros. or DC had hoped. Come November 2017 the expectations were that the movie would open with around $150 million, and hopefully would get into the $400 million territory by its close. Sadly, the movie opened to about $93 million, earning the worst opening of the lot. Perhaps that can be attributed to a busy holiday, smushed between movies like THOR: RAGNAROK, COCO, and STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI, or even just bad reviews (40 percent on Rotten Tomatoes). Either way, this movie ended up being less THE AVENGERS and more THE AVENGERS’ opening weekend.

The movie's bad performance put a lot of things into limbo for the DCEU. We now have no real idea which movies are officially on the docket. AQUAMAN is set for this December, SHAZAM! is meant to follow April 2019, and WONDER WOMAN 2 will open November 2019. Beyond that, we have no clue. One thing's for sure: JUSTICE LEAGUE 2 probably won't make the cut, and the team will probably just open up a Facebook group message. 

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I didn't hate JUSTICE LEAGUE and thought it would do much better than it did. But my guess for its disappointing run is that the movie's bad reviews just solidified in non-diehard fans that this series wasn't worth their time. WONDER WOMAN was great, but the bad reception to movies like SUICIDE SQUAD and BVS probably made people cautious to JL, and when those bad reviews came in, casual moviegoers backed away. I really wanted to love it, and I hope the series has better luck with its solo movies, like AQUAMAN and SHAZAM! Chin up, DCEU, there's always Blu-ray sales.

JUSTICE LEAGUE is on Blu-ray now.