MAR 28, 2016 @ 11:00 AM 2,176 VIEWS
'Batman V Superman' Box Office: How Even The Worst 'Dawn Of Justice' Reviews Helped Rather Than Hurt
Scott Mendelson CONTRIBUTOR I cover the film industry.
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
Warner Bros.
One of the narratives coming out of this weekend’s blockbuster Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice opening was that it “defied the critics” or that “critics don’t matter.” Well, as always with these sorts of things, it’s a little more complicated than that. Yes, the film got a stunningly low 29% on Rotten Tomatoes and yes the average score was 5/10 (which is closer to mixed-negative as opposed to outright dismissal). And yes, the film made (as of this writing) $170.1 million domestic and $424.1m worldwide despite the fact that 7.1/10 critics on that popular aggregation website disliked the picture.
You might think that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was something of a critic-proof picture, but you’re only half-right. The majority of those critics confirmed that, be it good or bad, viewers of said picture would get their money’s worth in a few key areas. It wasn’t so much that audiences ignored the critics (although some surely did), but rather that the negative reviews offered up confirmation of several core elements that were part of the film’s marketing campaign.
They confirmed that Batman and Superman do beat the heck out of each other. They confirmed that the film is full of “gotta see this in IMAX” spectacle and cinematic grandeur. They argued that Ben Affleck made a compelling Batman. They mostly were thrilled to see Wonder Woman in her late-in-the-game action cameo. The reviews were terrible to be sure, but they acknowledged that the film provided value regarding most of the core elements that a viewer might want out of the film.
Had those notices been along the lines of “The movie is boring, Batman and Superman don’t fight, visually bland and/or lit with a flashlight, Wonder Woman is lame, Affleck is a terrible Batman, and don’t take the kids,” I would argue the numbers would have been a lot lower. Okay, that last one applies, but that wasn’t a deal-breaker. If you’re a regular moviegoer already on the cusp of buying a ticket, even those poor reviews assured you that you’d, at least, get the stuff you wanted to get in a movie called Batman v Superman.
Lots of moviegoers would have seen the film no matter what the reviews were, either out of fandom, “stare at the train wreck” interest, inherent interest in the featured characters, or casual “I see most of the big movies no matter what” movie going desire. This is why Spectre still crossed $200 million domestic (and $880m worldwide) despite poor notices, and why Transformers: Age of Extinction is still a $1 billion movie.
It’s not that audiences ignored the reviews, although some surely did. It’s that the poor reviews for those films still assured audiences that they would get what they wanted regarding tropes and surface-level pleasures associated with said franchises.
Spectre still had the Bond girls, the gadgets, the locations, the various action scenes, and the big-screen splendor associated with 007. Every Michael Bay-directed Transformers film has “gotta see it in IMAX” splendor, a rich visual palette, insanely complicated action sequences involving giant robots beating the heck out of each other, lots of bawdy humor, and a certain conservative (or outright neocon) worldview.
It’s not so much that these films are “critic-proof” but rather that the reviews must confirm that audiences will get the surface-level elements that justify a ticket. They assured audiences who already wanted to see the film that, be it good or bad, the film would, at least, provide a certain amount of IMAX-friendly razzle-dazzle. Think of it as the equivalent of a negative review of a kid-friendly cartoon reassuring parents that there is nothing too violent, scary, or morally complicated to be found in its 85-minute running time. For such consumers, that’s an outright rave.
But in the broad scheme of things almost no movie is “critic-proof” because part of most movie reviews involves telling consumers what is in the film. I might argue, for example, that the deluge of raves for How to Train Your Dragon 2 which emphasized the emotional heartbreak probably did the movie a disservice regarding parents who maybe didn’t want to deal with upset kids in the theater. Speaking of this weekend’s other big release, even the worst My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 reviews still confirmed that it was more of the same for those who wanted exactly that.
And of course, there is a contingent of fandom that wants a Batman/Superman film that offers a hyper-violent, relentlessly grim, hopelessly cynical, and punishingly brutal worldview that pushes Superman out of the spotlight for a grimdark, murderously angry Batman. For those audiences, every negative Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice review was an A+ critique.
But here’s the rub: Audiences still weren’t exactly taken with the film, as the weekend was uber-frontloaded and a “B” CinemaScore ranking isn’t exactly promising. Make absolutely no mistake, had the film received better reviews, had it offered all of the above “positive” elements within a better, more enjoyable movie that critics loved just as much as they loved Batman Begins or The Flash television show, then we’d almost certainly be looking at a bigger opening weekend.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice would have snagged big business even if Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc. hadn’t bothered to screen the film for critics at all. But the negative reviews still did their part confirming that the film’s marketing campaign was not a fraud and that the surface level things you thought you wanted to see in a Batman v Superman movie were mostly intact.
That doesn’t mean that Warner Bros. is thrilled with the negative notices, or that they aren’t asking hard questions this morning even with the massive opening weekend. But the idea that the opening weekend for Batman v Superman is something of a repudiation of the critics is a falsehood, or, at least, a simplification.
Sure, audiences flocked to Batman v Superman despite the bad reviews. But I would argue that even those reviews did their part by detailing that the film still contained the things that general moviegoers were looking for. You wanted Batman versus Superman in a mega-budget, visually dynamic blockbuster movie with just enough Wonder Woman to whet the appetite? Well, thanks to we film critics, you dear consumer knew you were getting just that (if nothing more) when you walked into a theater this weekend.
You’re welcome, I guess.
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Nah, I feel ya. It was far from a perfect film. But I found myself entertained throughout it, mostly at the spectacle. I probably would have liked it a lot less if I hadn't seen a screener in IMAX. You know, when we do reviews, we only have a few days to do them, so I often prep some paragraphs ahead of time. I was figuring on ripping on the choreography in comparison to the Keysi days, but it delivered that nice single-shot Batman fight which I really enjoyed. 
Originally Posted by GLW
