Warner Bros.' fourth entry in their expansive DC Extended Universe,Justice League, got off to a solid start at the box office this weekend, taking in $13 million from Thursday sneak preview screenings. This figure is just above the Thursday tally for this summer’sWonder Woman, which took in $11 million on Thursday, en route to $38.2 million on Friday and a three-day opening weekend of $103.3 million. This puts theJustice League opening weekendto land anywhere between $110 million and $115 million, which was the low end of the initial box office tracking projections from late September.
This $13 million tally also falls just short of the $14.5 million Thursday tally two weeks ago from Marvel’sThor: Ragnarok, which lead to an impressive $46.5 million tally on Friday. The one big difference betweenThor: Ragnarok’s debut andJustice Leagueis the Marvel movie was universally praised by critics with a 93% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the second best reviewed Marvel movie behind 2008’sIron Man(94%). While theJustice League reviewswere certainly better thanBatman v Superman(27%) andSuicide Squad(26%), it still marks quite the decline from the 92% rating of this summer’sWonder Woman, which certainly seemed to helpWonder Womanin the long run.
While bothBatman v SupermanandSuicide Squadposted much bigger debuts,Wonder Womanmanaged to surpass both movies at the domestic box office, with its $412.5 million tally representing the second highest grossing movie of the year, behind Disney’sBeauty and the Beast($504 million). Unlike bothBatman v SupermanandSuicide Squad,Wonder Womanposted much more minimal drops from weekend to weekend, meaning repeat viewing was certainly much higher, and, whileWonder Womandidn’t have nearly as big an opening weekend as its predecessors, it managed to surpass them by holding better than both movies from weekend to weekend. IfJustice Leaguewants to have the same sort of box office success thatWonder Womanhas had, the second weekend may be just as important as the first, if not moreso. Still, that will prove to be much more difficult with a spate ofmixed reviews from Rotten Tomatoes critics.
Justice Leaguehas already opened in nine international markets on Wednesday and 38 more on Thursday, with its international tally currently at $27.3 million. That figure doesn’t include the “Day One flash estimate” of $15.1 million from China, whereJustice Leagueopens today on approximately 21,000 screens. This tally would be the second biggest opening day in China ever, behindBatman v Superman, and is also on par with the Chinese release ofThor: Ragnarok. Analysts are estimating that it should take in $50 million in China over the three-day weekend. TheJustice League opening weekendin the U.S. also coincides with debuts in 18 international markets today, including China, the U.K., Spain and Mexico. After this weekend, there are only three more international markets for it to open in, with the Japan debut on November 23, Pakistan on November 24 and Lebanon on November 30.
There has been talk that thesuccess of Justice Leaguecould determine the fate of other DCEU movies, so Warner Bros. clearly has a lot more riding on this movie. If it fails, it could mean that the DCEU will undergo some serious restructuring, but that has yet to be confirmed. The success ofWonder Womanseemed to instill a new faith in the DCEU, but ifJustice Leaguefalters at the box office this weekend, there could be some big changes afoot for the DCEU.Deadlinebroke the news of this Thursday box office tally earlier today. Be sure to check back on Sunday for the top 10 estimates.
