While Justice League wasn't met with the same level of critical negativity that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad, received, its commercial performance didn't measure up to its predecessors. Despite being the biggest DC Extended Universe entry yet, Justice League didn't get off to a great start at the box office, and while there has been a little improvement in international territories, the general consensus is that the movie starring Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg has underperformed. It's been over a month since Justice League was released, and with its time in theaters wrapping up in the coming weeks, it's estimated that the superhero movie could end its run having brought in approximately $675 million worldwide.
This estimate comes from Gitesh Pandya, the founder and editor of BoxOfficeGuru.com, who also recently noted that Justice League's domestic run could end somewhere in the $235 million area. Assuming Justice League does manage to secure $675 million worldwide, to compare to other superhero movies, that would place it between Doctor Strange, which made over $677 million worldwide, and Man of Steel, which made nearly $668 million worldwide. If this were a smaller, standalone DC movie, then such an amount might be more impressive, but this is Justice League we're talking about. No doubt Warner Bros was hoping it would perform similar to how The Avengers did for Marvel in 2012. Alas, even if we account for the home video sales coming in 2018, Justice League won't reach that $1 billion mark, and may not even end up surpassing $700 million.
Fortunately, it's not all bad news for DC movies in 2017. Wonder Woman proved to be a critical and commercial powerhouse this past summer (making over $820 million worldwide), which surely helps ease the pain of Justice League's lackluster performance for the Warner Bros brass. Nevertheless, after everything Justice League dealt with during the creative process, including frantic rewrites following Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice's critical lashing, Joss Whedon coming in to fill in for Zack Snyder and having to digitally cover up Henry Cavill's Mission: Impossible 6 mustache during reshoots, a $675 million draw can be classified as commercially disappointing.
Justice League's underwhelming box office run and mixed critical reaction have also led to some major restructuring over at DC Films. Jon Berg will no longer be a co-producer on the DC movies, DC president Geoff Johns role in this franchise will become less hands-on and more advisory, and there's even consideration into bringing DC Films into Warner Bros' main division rather than keep running it separately. More DCEU projects are on the way, like Aquaman, Shazam and Wonder Woman 2, but it stands to reason that there will be other shakeups in the future so this kind of thing doesn't happen again.
Justice League is still playing in theaters, and to learn what other DC movies are in development, consult our handy DCEU guide.
