Like a Kryptonite mist rolling over the land, the release of Batman v Superman in China has deadened the country’s theaters, driving away moviegoers and contributing to the demise of what should have been a hale and hearty QingMing Festival holiday box office weekend.
The superhero pic’s not so super 82.1 percent drop in revenue on Friday and Saturday from the same days last weekend is the biggest I can recall for a wide release in the decade since I’ve been following Middle Kingdom grosses. A plummet of that magnitude in North America would qualify as the fourth biggest second-weekend drop since such statistics have been recorded, worse even than BvS star Ben Affleck’s own box office disaster Gigli, which fell 81.9 percent in its second frame in 2003.
Image credit: DC Comics
What ought to have been at least a $175 million China haul for Batman v Superman (Marvel’s Avengers – Age of Ultron earned $236 million there) will instead be a comparatively meager tally in the low $90 millions, less than Marvel’s ‘minor’ pictures Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy earned from their respective 2015 and 2014 PRC releases.
It’s nearly impossible to overstate the seriousness of this as a financial setback for Warner Bros' DC unit and its Justice League franchise. Not only will the rapid Chinese demise of Batman v Superman crimp the picture's worldwide gross and greatly diminish its profitability, it has also soured the massive PRC audience on future Justice League releases.
Where Marvel has developed an enthusiastic and ever increasing fan base in China for its Cinematic Universe by gradually building from success to success, Batman v Superman has, in one fell swoop, burned any goodwill that might have existed there for the DC franchise. Here are some typical comments on the film from China's mtime.com movie fan forum:
ChatBigMountain: "Batman v Superman ignores the basic rules of story logic and insults the viewer's intelligence."
RushesNine: "True abuse from beginning to end."
E-Flash: "A bloated, sluggish and clumsy facial paralysis."
Additional comments on Douban, where the pic has scored a mediocre 6.7 average rating, characterized the pic as too "dark", "dull", and "confusing" to be enjoyed.
Although its projected 90+ million box office gross may not look so bad compared to prior superhero releases, it's important to put the number into context. The film will capture a market share of barely 1 percent of China's 2016 box office, a dismal, 5-year low-water mark for superhero movies there. Only a few comic book films have fared worse, and those were all released in the years prior to the current superhero boom.
Source: Pacific Bridge Pictures analysis
Batman v Superman would probably have fared even worse in China this weekend were it not for the surprisingly tepid audience response to this weekend's debuts of three locally made films, The Bodyguard, Chongqing Hotpot, and Who Sleeps My Bro. Each of the three earned less than $10 million on their opening Friday, setting up what looks to be an unusually soggy April at mainland theaters.
