As we discussed yesterday, something really funny/weird has happened with Justice League, Warner Bros. and Rotten Tomatoes. Warner Bros owns a piece of Fandango, which owns Rotten Tomatoes, which embargoed the RT score for Justice League until late last night. As many have pointed out, superhero movies are critic-proof, much like Taylor Swift albums. WB can throw any garbage out there and it will still make more than $600 million. Knowing that, WB regularly throws any and all garbage out there in theaters. Considering the awful reviews of RT scores of Suicide Squad and Batman v. Superman, I don’t think anyone really expected Justice League to get glowing, positive reviews. Many hoped that the reviews wouldn’t be too harsh. That didn’t happen.
The reviews are in, and now, so is the Rotten Tomatoes score. Justice League has been given a 43 percent score from the online review aggregator, 24 hours after reviews hit. That puts it in the middle of pack of the five films in Warner Bros.’ DC universe so far.
The delayed score came courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes’ new Facebook show See It/Skip It, which hits online late Wednesday nights. Rotten Tomatoes has begun holding back scores for some films and television shows so they can be revealed at the end of each episode, and this is the third time a score has been held for the Facebook show.
The DC films have enjoyed both Rotten Tomatoes success (this summer’s Wonder Woman earned 92 percent) and suffered low points (2016’s Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice’s 27 percent and Suicide Squad’s 26 percent). Man of Steel, the 2013 Superman film that kicked off the shared universe, earned a middling 55 percent.
This current Justice League score can be expected to fluctuate as more reviews come in and are tabulated. Rotten Tomatoes has become increasingly important to helping audiences choose which films to see, and recent projects with glowing scores have overperformed at the box-office (see: Spider-Man: Homecoming and Wonder Woman). Conversely, blockbusters with rock bottom scores such as Baywatch (19 percent) and Transformers: The Last Knight (15 percent) faltered domestically over the summer.
Nevertheless, Batman v. Superman ($873 million worldwide) and Suicide Squad ($745.6 milllion) went on to be box-office hits, their Rotten Tomatoes scores notwithstanding. Warner’s Justice League is tracking to debut to $110 million this weekend.
Even though THR published this early this morning, Rotten Tomatoes still hasn’t put the score online, at the time that I’m writing it. As of 9:30 am EST, it’s still listed as “no score yet.” As I said, these films are critic-proof. Justice League will open with $100 million-plus, I’m sure. So why all of the drama around the RT score and the reviews? At some point, WB is just going to have to own the fact that they’ve completely screwed up these franchises, with the exception of Wonder Woman (and I still believe they just sort of fell backwards into NOT screwing that up).
You can read a compilation of highlighted reviews here at THR too.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
The film, however bad it may be, is likely “critic proof” for at least the first weekend. It may well gross more this weekend than RAGNORAK did. That film had rave reviews and is great fun! DC fanboys do not care what critics say, and families always want something they can take their kids to see. I like WW, but I can’t stomach Affleck as Batman [C. Bale was the best].
The fact that we’re even mentioning a Thor movie, no matter how good, as a comparison/benchmark for Justice League….. is very telling.
It’ll be even more so if it doesn’t smash Ragnarok’s opening weekend. Who’d have thought?!
LOL my friends saw this two days ago and said it was a mess. Basically that the story was all over the place
Many of the reviews I’ve seen complain about how it feels like a movie with different plots stuck together. Which is understandable with Whedon taking over for Synder. Weird thing is some are saying they like the Synder parts over Joss’s because they have more plot meat.
The result is a #1 reason why you shouldn’t change directors, the stories, in mid-stream. What they did when Ron Howard took over “Solo” was junk 99% and essentially reshoot the movie. Might be expensive but you also get a more coherent movie.
They didn’t have a choice. Snyder’s daughter died.
Jason is shirtless with tattoos. Warner Bros is already counting my ticket money.
I will probably see this just for Jason and Gal Gadot.
Me too. I do enjoy Ezra Miller as well, but could take hard passes on batfleck and Cavill.
I don’t care for DC, except WW, but my guess is that Gal and Mamoa are the big draws.
They’re good looking people, but terrible actors let’s be real. Will wait for this one on a streaming service and go see Thor again.
Wonder Woman wasn’t screwed up for one reason: Patty Jenkins. If some dude bro had directed like say, Brett Ratner (shudder), it would have been terrible. A woman at the helm made all the difference.
Or Joss Whedon, his script was awful. There’s a youtube channel – “Beyond the trailer” that has an interesting video on this subject, the video is titled ” Justice League – Wonder Woman vs Joss Whedon BREAKDOWN” if anyone’s interested.
Let’s not blame Whedon for this. He did not wrote the script, Chris Terrio did with Snyder directing. When Snyder stepped away Whedon came in to finish up which led to reshoots. But Whedon would have had to scrap the entire film and start all over to undo what Snyder has already done and the studio was not going for that. Basically Whedon stepped in to try to clean up Snyder”s mess but too much of the film was already completed.
Even Ray Fisher had a Freudian slip when he said something like thanks for Joss coming in to clean up/finish up the film.
I meant Joss Whedon’s script for Wonder Woman, what his version of WW would have been like and that was sexist and awful. I just can’t stand him, personally I agree with what Grace Randolph says in that youtube video.
Might I slightly disagree with you? The difference between Patty and Ratner or Snyder is not about gender (but of course it counts in the context of a female take of a female superhero, that’s without question). The main difference and the only that counts is that Patty actually is a good director. Plain and simple. She’s an artist. Ratner and Snyder are simply not.
+1
43% is actually better than I expected. People will see it because there’s just built-in appeal for big action driven superhero stuff. I’ll probably be seeing it soon because my husband and daughter love this kind of movie. And I’m glad my daughter is into Wonder Woman.
At the end of the day, the DC cinematic universe is forever chasing Marvel, who seem to have a better grip on their superhero narratives. And while Marvel has made some brilliant casting choices like RDJ as Ironman and Mark Ruffalo as Hulk, DC has made some real head scratchers (Ben Affleck, anyone?).
Well the silver lining for Ben was that people liked him more as Batman in BvS then they did Henry Cavil as Superman.
The problem isn’t with Ben playing Batman, the problem is the critics hate the plot or lack there of.
They need to start choosing better directors.
Would these viewers really care about RT? I don’t know, I don’t watch any of these types of movies.
No, because Pacific Rim got horrible reviews yet they are making another one.
That’s apparently because it did really well in China.
Actually, Pacific Rim got good reviews – it’s listed at 71% on RT. It just underperformed at the domestic box office. As Tia said, it made more money internationally, so that’s why they’re making another. But it did get good reviews. 🙂
I can tell you – it doesn’t matter. These movies can be huge steaming piles of cow turds and yet, they will make their first weekend AND there will be people who like them. Case in point: I work within the comic industry and there are friends of mine that, no matter what, LOVE each and every one of these movies. Even Batman Vs Superman.. Even Suicide Squad. They just don’t have any critical thinking skills when it comes to these films, because it’s their inner ’10 year old fanboy/fangirl’ watching. And THAT is what the studios are always banking on.
Yeah BvS was not great, but I thought Suicide Squad was kind of fun if you go into it with the right mindset. Granted, I read the reviews beforehand and wasn’t expecting much, but it was kind of a loud, flamboyant mess. The kind that’s so stupid it’s kind of amusing but not too stupid that it becomes sad and aggravating. Sometimes I kind of want that kind of movie. Not everything has to be a thoughtful masterpiece.
Suicide Squad was both terrible and fun.
Superman is my favourite superhero. Nobody can argue with me about him. I will always see any movie that has Superman in it. I see a vast array of movies. A couple of days ago I saw The Florida Project based on, “critical reviews” and I was bored out of my mind. I’ll see Justice League and I’ll probably enjoy it because they always get crap reviews.
I saw Thor and I wanted to like it but it didn’t live up to the hype either. I really wanted to like it because I really like Taika Waititi (Hunt for the Wilderpeople was awesome) and it was fun and campy but not that great.
There is a blind out there that Ben was so drunk at a dive bar that Jen’s bodyguard had to literally carry him out! Ben is a big guy…that had to be one strong bodyguard!
Don’t know if it is true(and I hope it is not)
Don’t know if it was before or after his last intervention.
The reveal says it was JLO’s bodyguard, not Jen’s.
@ Learningthesystem
I saw it on foxilla and it says Jennifer Garner not Jennifer Lopez. Did u see it on another blind? Sometimes the answers vary on other blinds.
I think it originated on CDAN which is where the reveal said JLO.
After seeing the great Thor: Ragnarok, I don’t have the patience or the energy to sit through a mess like the Justice League. The trailer alone was so unappealing with the dull colours and lighting, and not one interesting snippet to show. Plus, Coco and The Last Jedi are on the way so I’ll be saving my money for those movies instead.
I regretted ever seeing Man of Steel, BvS, and Suicide Squad on the big screen. Utter crap.
I’d never go see this in theaters but I’d probably rent it when it’s out on DVD/streaming services just so I can watch Wonder Woman.
The only DC movie I’ve seen is Wonder Woman and I’m a huge geek. I’ve seen all the Marvel movies except for Dr. Strange (not okay with the whitewashing, even for the amazing Tilda) and loved the Michael Keaton Batman movies but I loathe Snyder’s universe. DC will get my money again when WW2 is released. Oh, and I can’t stand Affleck as Batman.
I’m not going to see it. I can’t. I love the animated series and don’t see how this will do it justice. Not everything needs to be made into a live action movie.
Just like I loved the x men animated series and thought the movies have yet to do it justice.
I did enjoy the Ragaranok movie. It’s the first one I thoroughly enjoyed in that universe.
I know, bigger problems in the world, but, hey.
-N
DC just keeps getting it wrong. I think it might have just been better to stick to the grimdark. The sudden change to humor was jarring in the trailer.
Count me as a big Superman fan as well. I’ve tried to like Man of Steel but it didn’t work. This is the first Superman i couldn’t care less about. Maybe it’s Cavill i dunno. A friend dragged me to BvS ( i was so dissapointed with MoS that i didn’t want to go). I was bored out of my mind. I’ve seen Suicide Squad and i try to also forget that trainwreck. That same friend tried to get me to a midnight showing of Justice League i again didn’t care. And i need some welldeserved sleep than wasting my time with this crap.
Because of Superman i’ve always considered myself mostly in the DC camp though i’m not against Marvel. I’ve seen almost every Marvel movie except for Dr Strange. I went to cinema 2 cinema weeks ago with my brother and we had a great time. Why can’t that be the case with DC movies?
It’s like they actively only like to put out crap.
I’m a part of a couple of online Nerd Groups and while most of the time people make fun of them for being too much of purists and such I do find that in cases like these movies they are the opposite. The focus on the best in the worst of movies like Batman Vs. Superman or Suicide Squad. Wonder Woman was the best thing about Bats vs. Supes or Harley Quinn hit it out of the Park in Suicide Squad. As long as there is enough action and villains get punched the Rotten Tomato scores won’t dissuade them
Anyone going into the WB movies expecting them to be like a Marvel movie isn’t going to love them. There are a lot of faults with both methods, but most fans were not upset with the BvS movie because they like the darker edge. They didn’t love the insta-bromance between Bruce and Clark but on the whole the movie did what it was supposed to do. The Marvel team spent many years creating a formula that works and having Disney on their side helped, but there re fans who feel Marvel has tried to Disneyfy the movies too much with humor.
Suicide Squad sucked great big donkey balls, but I think that was more to do with casting and editing decisions than anything else, but it was also a movie where people had to accept bad guys as good guys, so it was going to be a challenge either way. The comic doesn’t shade them as heroes and this one kind of did, so it failed on both levels.
Wonder Woman worked really well, and I loved it on the first viewing. Second viewing, honestly it was boring. But I felt the same way about the first Captain America film too, and she is basically a Captain America type hero just DC. Her movies will work here in out much like the Captain America ones work.
I think this movie will be entertaining if nothing else. I want to see Momoa shirtless and that’s really all I need for a movie to be good.
The first Captain America is a bit of a snooze but you need it to get to where you die (nerd tears) whenever Steve and Bucky fight etc.
Wonder Woman might be the same, I really liked it but it might just be the opening to a much more emotional story.