We’re a little under two weeks away from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and while we fully expect the film will have a strong opening weekend, the real question is just how big. How big will the coming out party for the DC universe actually be? Well, if pre-sale tickets are any indication, it’s going to be big. The pre-sale for Batman v Superman is outpacing The Avengers which opened with more $200 million.
While the early tickets are far from a perfect indicator of how well a movie will do overall, they do at least give us an idea of what the interest level is for the film. According to Deadline, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice has currently sold something in the neighborhood of $20-$25 million in ticket sales. The pre-sales numbers, at two weeks before release, are higher than those posted for Deadpool (opening weekend $132.4M), The Avengers ($207.4M) and Furious 7 ($147.1M). As Deadline states, this puts it about on par with the pre-sale numbers for The Dark Knight, which saw a domestic opening of just short of $170 million. That’s well above the $152 million needed to set a box office record for the month of March, and for director Zack Snyder.
The numbers come from box office analyst Movio, which studies trends among ticket buyers. They compared this ticket buying group to the pre-sale ticket buyers for Jurassic World and found some interesting information. Those who bought tickets to the Thursday night screenings are slightly younger than the Jurassic World audience, at an average age of 30.3 years vs. 30.6. Most intriguing, they are significantly more male, making up 82% of the Thursday night audience vs. 64% for Jurassic World.
If these numbers follow through it will likely be good news for Warner Brothers. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is releasing in several countries at once on March 25, which means the studio will have a good idea where they stand at the end of the first weekend. There’s a lot riding on Dawn of Justice when it releases a week from Friday. The film introduces nearly the entire Justice League in one way or another, and several follow-up films are already being worked on. While a complete flop is just short of impossible at this point, even a mediocre opening might cause the studio to question their direction with these properties. It could impact everything they have planned going forward. The good news is that doesn't look likely as globally the movie is tracking toward a $350 million opening.
Do you already have your tickets to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice? How big a movie do you think it will actually be? Will the Justice League be able to out do The Avengers?
