Unless WB decides to give us access to their P&Ls, nobody here will ever really know the full profitability of BvS.
In the absence of hard numbers, WB's changes to their scheduling (fewer small movies being released was an immediate after-effect once BvS BO numbers were locked in), movie director changes, reshoots, etc, give us a good idea of the actual profit being lower than expected, or at least a disappointing ROI. IMO the Flash director leaving over "creative differences" is the most telling, because it makes no sense if it's true they're keeping the script he wrote. If that rumour is true, then there's a
lot more going on than what we're being told, and there will likely be further shakeups.
It's also interesting to just consider what WB
expected to make from BvS in the leadup to making the film. Again, we have no hard numbers, but we can get an idea of this from several sources. The first is to actually crowdsource the numbers, and take the average of the predictions from different forums/threads/etc (although you would have to filter out the "2+ Billion!!" chest thumping that was happening). I think this comes out to around 1-1.2 billion, although I don't have all the data handy. Second is to consider how WB played chicken with BvS being in theaters on the Civil War release date, a threat which would only happen if they thought their box office clout was in the same league as the top MCU successes (or perhaps I should say, the same
justice league as the MCU, *badoom swish*
t
. Other things like the hiring of a big name actor in Ben Affleck and parading him in front of investors to please them, DC panelists disparaging the MCU movies during the lead-up to BvS, disrespecting and taking their own fans for granted, are all somewhat minor but interesting factors to consider. Lastly, remember the rather strict moratorium on reviews and the herculean "control the narrative" marketing that happened leading up to and during the opening weekend, which was unprecedented and honestly quite shocking for such a huge movie? That didn't come from out of nowhere, and it speaks to a studio suddenly forced to face reality and desperately trying to salvage what they can, without even worrying that they obviously appear desperate and scared to movie-goers, which is definitely not a good sign. It's serious business when a movie studio drops the mask and considers their image and public perception to be low priority.
Considering all these things, I think it's safe to say that WB had certainly budgeted for north of 1 billion BO revenue for this movie. There's simply no other way to interpret this behaviour. If they became overconfident in their brand and promised -- or worse, guaranteed -- an ROI for investors based on that budgeted amount, then they could definitely be in a bit of trouble as a result. I would argue that financial
expectations are just as important as financial results in the business of super-hero movie franchises, because so much is being done to set up future ventures.
