Mike86

They've built their reputation over a long period of time. There are a lot of similarities between Batman V Superman and Civil War but Marvel didn't just jump into that film right away. I think that's one of the biggest differences aside from the film's drab tone and a storyline that was all over the place. DC at least should have done a solo Batman film and maybe even a second Superman film before having them face off. The fact that they were so impatient is what led to Batman V Superman turning out the way it did. I don't think it's as cut and dry as brand loyalty. There is some of that but Batman on his own is a big brand even without DC. The same can be said about Superman. The key components to a hypothetically successful film were there they were just executed poorly.

Deadpool I think was just a lot of the right things coming together. Solid filmmakers and actors who clearly believed in their product, clever and effective marketing, and something fresh for the genre.

fumanstan

Brand recognition and awareness can only take you so far, the rest is largely up to the movie actually being good so that hype and word of mouth carries the film beyond the opening weekend. Just look at Iron Man, which made more money then Man of Steel without any Marvel awareness at it's release.

The idea that BvS would have done better if it was labeled Marvel is ridiculous and makes zero sense to me, nor do the claims of differences in fan support. The box office results don't back that up at all - again, as I posted previously, the last two Batman solo movies made more money then every Marvel movie outside of the Avengers. Man of Steel made more money then any other MCU solo movie except for Iron Man, Guardians, and now Civil War (an aberration given the content). BvS had a huge opening day. The interest was there, the quality wasn't to sustain it.

At the end of the day, the two DC Extended Universe movies are rated worse critically then every single Marvel Cinematic Universe entry. Make a good superhero movie with Superman, Batman, or whomever and the fans and general audience will go.

I get that there are people that liked BvS more then Civil War, but in my opinion it's not really rocket science why there's a big difference in the box office results, and saying it's an issue of fan support or whatever just largely sounds like an excuse to me rather then acknowledging the clear difference in audience reception.

Brack

This is kind of why I think the Deadpool sequel is going to have to be a little different from the original. I just don't see it doing close to the same business. I think the comedy aspect helped the first one, but like so many comedies/comic films, the sequels usually don't do as well. I hope I'm wrong.

Mike86

Yeah I think the sequel will be a challenge. The first one was something fresh and different. The sequel I fear could end up like other comedy sequels (even though that's only part of it the film relied on comedy quite a bit) where the jokes aren't as clever plus in general it can be hard to top a good first film.

Brack

Just to be clear, I don't see Deadpool as a straight up comedy either, but like a big, surprise comedy hit, like Ted or The Hangover, the sequel will have some wild expectations to perform just was well, and that's what I'm getting at. Nothing against the film, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I can't help but think it over-performed at the box office. I think the next villain and story will have to be a bit better the next time around, which honestly shouldn't be too hard to accomplish. The good thing about Deadpool is that it can pretty much go anywhere, unlike a move like Ted where the talking teddy bear joke was already done and it was an uphill battle before a script was even written for a sequel (I still haven't seen Ted 2).

james2025a

Or Iron Man (3 which made $1.26 billion) and Captain America (Civil War Box Office currently stands at $1.07 billion and I expect will add at least another $100 million in the rest of its run). None of the Batman movies have ever hit $1.2 billion.

And the last Batman movie (BvS) didn't even hit the billion mark, and it should have hit that mark easily. That to me is the clearest sign of its failure. The two most recognizable comic book super heroes (I always think Spidey comes pretty close to being as familiar these days) should have been setting Box Office records and taking bank to a new level.

fumanstan

I was just going off domestic. International is interesting, it feels like international box office has increased quite a bit in just the last few years, especially for super hero movies. Probably telling that a lot of the top overseas returns are recent, especially in 2015 which has 3 of the 5 movies to break 1 billion internationally.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/

Count Dooku

Last year, American Sniper opened wide over MLK weekend. It had a 100+ milllion opening.

Straight Outta Compton opened mid-August and had a 60 million opening.

I remember when the summer blockbuster season did not begin until Memorial Day weekend or the week before. Then in 1996 they put Twister in theaters two weeks before Mission Impossible and it made a fortune. Pretty soon, The Mummy movies were opening at the beginning of May, and Gladiator opened 5/5 2000. After that Spiderman.

Now it is completely accepted that summer starts at the beginning of May, not the end.

Brack

September and October are still pretty weak months for "event" movies, with the the records in the $40-50s as far as opening weekends go. I'm sure that if a studio wanted to open an event film during those months, those records would be broken as well.

The Bus

American Sniper would've made more had it been released during other weekends.

johnnysd

I guess if you are really invested in the Marvel characters I could see Civil War being a good movie to you from that standpoint. Although I have enjoyed many of the Marvel ones, my favorite is GOTG by far, and I really liked the the first Avengers movie. For me I guess the climax of the Marvel universe was that Avengers movie, but since then I have thought that the quality and impact the Marvel movies has had since has dropped off precipitously. Like I said if you love these characters then Civil War may have been great, and there are obviously a LOT of people in that category. However in my opinion, as a stand alone film Civil War was pretty terrible. I was actually bored to tears often in it, and that the entire plot was dumb, despite having a strong thematic core.

BvS is an unqualified muddled mess. There is potentially a trilogy worth of plot in it, is pretty poorly written and Luthor is tragically wrong. It is uber dark and I am not really a super fan of the "dark" super hero movies that much. But despite all that I think it is a better overall film, and buried amon all the blather are some really exceptional elements. For example, it is in my view the best Batman that has ever been on screen. Easily. Truly the first time I have ever thought I was watching the Batman from the comics. Wonder Woman is also exceptional, and despite the tremendously dull design of Doomsday her fighting in that last battle was exceptional. In fact that fight scene is one of the best ones in my view of all the super hero movies. I honestly think I enjoyed WWs smirk more than the entire Civil War movie.

So I do not think that the results are really due to Civil War being better than BvS, I think what it really comes down to is that movie goes are more invested in the Marvel characters and love them and Civil War gives you lots of them. (it is essentially Avengers 3 despite the title) If you dont love them, and just view the films as stand alone entities I think they are ultimately both mediocre, and for me BvS is a slightly better movie. Civil War rides on the strength of it's fan boy moments. And that is smart of Marvel.

Solid Snake

But would it have been possible?

Marvel has to survive on the long term investment of the fanbase. It has a living breathing universe to take care of. And that world, even on the page, demands at times for one to be versed in the makeup of that world to understand characters. Things have to cross over to feel real to the world.

Mike86

The thing is Marvel has made it easy to become invested in their characters. Eight years of build over the course of thirteen films all of which have been at least decent (I truly don't think Marvel has reached a real low point despite having some films that are weaker). When a company manages to push out as many films as they have and continues to stay consistent in quality it's easy to become invested in the characters.

I've said since the beginning that DC not taking the time to build their universe was going to bite them in the ass and it did. They really should have at least built up their core characters before going straight to Batman V Superman. They were too reliant on thinking people were excited about seeing the two characters on screen that they didn't take the time to pen a great film. It's rather pathetic when you think about the amount of time that went into production on Batman V Superman and how poorly it turned out.

Also truthfully I wasn't a really big Marvel fanboy before the films. I liked a lot of their characters but always liked DC more. Marvel has made me more of a fan through their films.

Supermallet

I don't see how people can say the quality of Civil War and BvS as films didn't have any hand in their respective box office performances. Civil War has a lot going on but never feels jumbled. Everything is laid out in a way that makes sense both to storytelling logic and to the emotional state of the characters. The film's construction is rock solid, and each individual sequence is very well done, the highlight being the airport fight.

BvS feels like a random collection of scenes cobbled together with no regard for the needs of the story or the characters. The action sequences lose whatever impact they have very quickly as the whole thing descends into video game numbness. Plus almost all the color has been stripped out of it, making the imagery itself feel as numb as the action.

As for the characters, I wish Wonder Woman had been given as much to work with as Scarlet Witch or Black Widow in CW. What does she really do? She steals a hard drive, then flirts with Brice Wayne, then watches videos on a laptop before finally showing up to fight. Once in the fight, she barely says anything, and after the fight she also barely says anything. She's not a character, she's a prop. Marvel realizes that even the characters who will never get their own movies deserve arcs and emotional lives. For WW we'll have to wait for her movie to see what she's actually like as a character.

Civil War gives the audience more to invest in even if it's the first Marvel movie they've ever seen. BvS is banking on the audience creaming themselves over seeing images from the comics brought to life. It isn't a contest.