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this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2025
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James Gunn generally knows what he's doing and I'm sure the movie is fine.
But a film that cost $225M to produce and another $200M to market on a franchise that's nearly a century old and has always been box office gold... If it doesn't turn a cool $1B the studio will consider it a flop. That its cruising in to the box office third place behind Minecraft (predictably disappointing) and the Live Action Lilo & Stitch (Christ, Disney, just die already) is... eh. Not a great sign for The Movies generally speaking.
I think this is one of the few cases where the studio does care more about the critical and especially fan reception than the box office returns. They are trying to relaunch their whole franchise and this is one of the cornerstones.
Also $1b is just way off considering not a single superman movie has ever achieved it based on this source.
Naw man, studios only care about money.
Apart from billionaire pet projects like Laika that might be true, but this seems a bit too reductionist. There are many ways to go about it and the difference matters. Unless you want to tell me the the whole media industry from Netflix to A24 does the exact same thing.
I am not following your thinking.
The pet projects are the ones done for passion and other reasons.
Netflix, A24 and Disney, release movies and TV shows for one reason, to make money.
My line of thought is that yes the end goal is shareholder value/money, but the method varies. You can go for quality or quantity, or for long vs short term profits. And those steps in-between matter.
In this case with WB and Superman the amount of money an occasional Superman movie can make is not enough, they want that sweet franchise model. But you can't just will that into place, as they've demonstrated with their failure to do so so far.
There has to be some substance at the start before you can roll out even lesser IP and make bank like marvel. Which is why in this instance they probably don't care as much about the profit from this movie, but try to optimize it more for audience and critic appeal.
Right, make it now or make it later.
Exactly. And also i think it's hard to see those superhero movies aimed at establishing a franchise as something standalone.
This excerpt from the article really says it all.