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The Good News For Warner Brothers: Superhero bonanza ‘Batman V Superman’ weathered scathing reviews to retain the #1 spot at the box office for a second week, taking in a healthy $52.4 million.

The Bad News: The film toppled a whopping 68%, giving it one of the biggest second week drops on the books for a superhero movie.  That puts it in the illustrious company of ‘Elektra’ and ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ (69.7%), ‘Jonah Hex’ and ‘The Hulk’ (70.7%), ‘Steel’ (78%) and last year’s ‘Fantastic Four’ (68.2%).

bvs-wonder-womanThe Good News: Those were almost all flops right out of the gate.  This film is ALREADY a record-breaking hit and has, in just two weeks, already out-grossed the entire runs of ‘Batman Begins’, the first two ‘Iron Man’ films and ‘Thor: The Dark World’.  So Warner Brothers may have some things to think about regarding their upcoming DC movies, but nothing to worry about.

The Bad News: It fell slightly short of ‘Man of Steel’ which dropped 67%.  BUT, that movie dropped due to the arrival of two new blockbusters, ‘World War Z’ and ‘Monsters University’.  Jack S**t opened this week, so that can’t be blamed.

The Good News:  That also puts it in the company of major hits like the last two ‘Twilight’ installments and ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2’  which fell 72% from the first to the second week.  ‘Harry Potter’ 8 went on to be the highest grossing of its franchise.

The Bad News: Just like with ‘Man of Steel’ these movies were bumped by major new movies opening on their second weekends.  ‘Harry Potter’ got knocked down by ‘Captain America: The First Avenger.’  ‘BvS’ can’t make that claim.  It’s closest competition was ‘Zootopia’ which is in its fifth week.

The Good News: (Kind of) ‘Batman V Superman’ opened on a huge holiday weekend, so OF COURSE it dropped off big time.

The Bad News: Just last year, ‘Furious 7’ broke the record for highest Easter Weekend ever (which was bested by ‘BvS’) and only dropped off 60% in its second week and scored $59.6M, $7.2M more than ‘BvS’ did this weekend.

Okay, enough with that…

Once again, ‘BvS’ is already a huge hit, with $261.4M domestic.  Going back to ‘Twilight’ and ‘Harry Potter’, what we may be seeing is that ‘Batman V Superman’ is simply a “fandom” movie– director Zack Snyder has expressed that he made this movie “for the fans”– and typically passionate fans turn out ASAP for huge movie releases, making them “top-heavy” with the first weekend sometime accounting for roughly half a film’s domestic haul.

It’s the film-goers that do not consider themselves huge fans that are more likely to wait to check out a movie after the crowds die down.  Unfortunately, it’s those same casual viewers that are more likely to pay heed to bad reviews and word-of-mouth, which this movie has generated in droves.

This film might be a shaky start for Warner Brothers’ DC Expanded Universe, but then again, it is itself built upon a shaky first film, ‘Man of Steel’, which was far from beloved.  BUT, even naysayers admit the best part of ‘BvS’ was Wonder Woman, so her solo effort, due next spring, should be a massive hit without even trying.  And even though some condemn Zack Snyder’s directing, it’s not like those folks are going to NOT go see ‘Justice League – Part One’.  So while ‘BvS’ won’t be doing ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ numbers, it kinda doesn’t need to.

Here is the Top Five:

  1. Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice (Warner Brothers) – $52.4M
  2. Zootopia (Disney) – $20M
  3. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (Universal) – $11M
  4. God’s Not Dead 2 (Pure Flix) – $8M
  5. Miracles From Heaven (Sony) – $7.5M

‘BvS’ will drop more next weekend, as is simply the nature of movies, but it’s quite likely that it will retain the #1 spot as once again, it has almost no competition.  Melissa McCarthy’s comedy ‘The Boss’ should do well, especially against minimal new competition and this week’s fading Top Five, most of which have been out for a few weeks now.  Buzzy low budget sci-fi flick ‘Hardcore Henry’ may prove to be a surprise hit.

‘BvS”s real test will come the following week when Disney’s ‘The Jungle Book’ arrives.

Check back to see how things fare!

Source: Deadline