Yes! Dan this is a goldmine for interesting data analysis. I know some cinematic universes are ongoing, but you can certainly track and analyze some of the bigger and older ones.
I think it would also be interesting to see this for other franchises. Harry Potter would be interesting to see the profitability considering just how much WB seems to want to keep it around
I like to see a Sony one. Out of all the big studios, they chose to keep with the old formula and if they didn't think a film would go well...sell to a streaming service. Remember this: Sony produced The Boys and Last of Us!
@laladoopsy Sony has been smart, though at the beginning of the streaming wars, others probably thought they were dumb. It is definitely easier to make deals with others than to do it themselves.
He just showed the straight sales figures for home video . But it's like the box office figures, the studios Don't get it all back. The company the produce the discs and distributes and merchandises them in stores, they get a cut. Then Amazon, Walmart and Best Buy, they get their cut. Or if you stream it in Apple , Amazon , Vudu, they take their cut etc.
I would love to see you do this for the MCU. Maybe break it up into phases to keep it manageable, but with the rough year Disney/Marvel just had it would be cool to see how that compares to the overall success of the MCU. Was it a big blow, or rather small in comparison to all the hits they had?
@@AllInTheGame01 Yeah but it still got released in a packed holiday season with army Poppins returns, spiderman into the spider verse, and bumblebee all coming out the same time. And Aquaman still made more than all of those. I think it kind of became the "avatar" movie event of that season
@@mania4270 Sure, but unlike the vast majority of other billion-dollar grossing comic book movies, Aquaman ($1.15bn) literally doesn't get close to $1bn w/o its $300m Chinese B.O. That's also why it's not as profitable as it should have been as WB gets a much smaller cut (just 22.5%) of that $300m which is why according to Dan it's only around $80m more profitable than Wonder Woman ($824m) despite grossing around $328m more worldwide!
I use to work for a marketing agency that did work during the early DCEU and it should be noted that they made a crazy amount of backend revenue through Warner Bros consumer products. Just reviving these characters allowed them to turn a profit through doors that were not open before. For Super Hero movies and animated movies the long term $$$$ is in the merchandising, licensing etc.
According to TV Tropes, Man of Steel made over $150 million in product tie-ins before hitting theaters at all. Similar was undoubtedly the case with Batman v. Superman. Note that I have not actually seen either movie. I would have seen the former when it came out but I fell sick and skipped it.
It makes too much sense that they made overall profit on this. If they weren't why didn't they stop after Justice League? They probably made a small profit but it became too risky after The Flash.
I think it's a double edged sword though. As a kid, your sense of quality is somewhat odd. You don't care whether or not the movie is good, you see a shiny new batman toy and you want that so your parents buy it for you. There was no reason to put as much money into these films as they did if their intention was to put them on backpacks and lunchboxes to break even. And honestly it's like... if a kid wants a backpack with batman on it and the parent buys the one with the movie version.... did the movie sell that backpack or did it just happen to be one with the character on it?
Acctually you should probably add the cost of batgirl in your calculations as well. They did spend quite a lot of money on it, even if was binned in the end
I don't remember any details or rumors, would Batgirl have any connection to the rest of DCEU or would it have been a separate concept like Joker or The Batman?
@@Cotsos88 Last I remember, She was supposed to be under Keaton's batman from the Flash. I don't know whether Keaton was going to replace Affleck, they had Clooney's Batman in there as well it was a mess.
@@Cotsos88they were planning on using her Batgirl in the dceu movies, and then starting a Batman Beyond like franchise. Her character was also supposed to show up in two out of the five original main endings (that we know of) from The Flash movie.
I would kill for a profitability video like this but on the MCU, especially the more recent phases, though I know with so much exclusive Disney+ content that might be impossible.
It's safe to say the first 3 phases made money as a whole. Phase 4 so far, hmmmm... likely not. I agree however, seeing each individual phase broken down, would be interesting to see.
@@purple1441 Just so I understand your comment, you're stating phase 4 movies made money and the shows related to them didn't? Personally, the shows should be included, they're interconnected.
@@Mave-rick I don't actually know if the shows didn't make money. WandaVision definitely did and She-Hulk definitely didn't, but we can't really determine the rest. Also, because of Disney+ the movies get added there so it adds to the revenue. Phase 4 is gonna be a lot more complicated to calculate than Phases 1-3.
@@purple1441 Your original comment, if you stick to the movies, Phase 4 more than likely made money. Agreed. Like I said originally, adding the shows, I'm not so sure.
The Thin Red Line was great, but I could absolutely not stay awake through the whole thing. I first saw it in college, where they used to show movies for a dollar Thursday through Sunday nights. I went to like a midnight showing (maybe 1am, because I think it's long) and was knocked out during the part where the soldiers walk through a field with the fancy artistic shots. Then a few years later I saw it in Blockbuster and rented it so I could see the parts I missed, and somehow it knocked me out again in the middle of the day. Usually I'm not a great sleeper, but that movie put me to sleep twice.
So happy to see you shout out Kan-Kan!! They are super supportive of the local film scene here in Indy as well. Was just there the other day catching a screening of a film that my friend starred in and the theater was super accommodating. Whenever I finish my own film I will definitely be screening there
Clarification: you say the movies made $600+ million dollars in physical media sale profits, but not all of that is profit, right? Those look like gross receipts to me, so I suspect the studios retained less than half of that when you account for the cut at retail, the cost of the actual physical production, etc. Which just further emphasizes your point: the older movies that made about $100 million, brought them another $50m in profit, which isn’t bad! But the ones only making $15 million probably only contributed a few million dollars actually towards closing the loss gap
Hey Dan, thank you for your analysis❤ Not to be that guy, but there's a problem with your math at 21:24 See, you got the profits from Deadline and subtracted from them the losses you calculated. However, Deadline had already worked in some of these losses (for example: the theatrical losses from MoS). So by substracting them again, you substracted twice. What you should do is that you only substract the losses of the films that Deadline did not list as profitable.
Hats off to you Dan for the DCEU Profitability Deep Dive, great work! To have only 3 out of 15 movies (20%) be profitable in their theatrical run is pretty embarrassing! Pandemic aside, a huge $185m prod budget (2nd highest ever for an R-rated movie) for Gunn's Suicide Squad never seemed like a smart decision!
suicide squad was one of the 3 profitable movies despite being pretty negatively reviewed by audiences and critics alike. the release strategy, marketing (including title -- why confuse everyone with such a similar title?), and the piracy dan mentioned all contributed to the suicide squad massively underperforming despite strong reviews. i know i've seen it multiple times and i think it's the only dceu movie where this is true.
@@michaelnally2841 Obviously, but a $185m prod budget for an R-rated movie (2nd highest ever) is HUGE esp for a franchise that was already struggling in terms of profitability at that point!
I’m wondering if WB ended up damaging the brand with the DCEU. 20 years ago, if you had asked anyone about their favorite superhero, most of the answers would have been DC characters. But after bad movies (Martha) and out of character actions (Superman killing?) , coupled with really great Marvel movies, I doubt you’d get the same results today.
DC was already losing the comics sales battle to Marvel for many decades... the movies were the only thing they had. They may not have damaged the IP itself (The Batman still turned a pretty good profit), but definitely hurt the fandom's trust that DC/Warner are able to do anything more than standalone movies.
The “Elseworld’s” projects for DC like Joker and The Batman brought in loads of money, and the sequels will keep bringing profit in with the films making over a billion again…
"Joker and The Batman brought in loads of money, and the sequels will keep bringing profit in with the films making over a billion again" That's very unlikely seeing how RPat's Batman didn't even make a billion. Joker did, but that's because it came out during the 2019 superhero peak which is clearly long dead now.
How did it lose more? I’m pretty sure it was a smaller budget relative to BvS and it also had critical/audience goodwill. It didn’t score a billion dollars, but its grosses are probably comparable to “Batman Begins.”
“The Batman: Part II” or whatever it’s called could still make big bucks, and possibly even a billion. Audiences and reviewers actually liked it, and positive feelings on the last one means more people will be looking forward to seeing a continuation. Think the jump from “Batman Begins,” which wasn’t remarkable but did solidly along with DVD sales and merchandising to turn a bit of profit [at least that’s what I read somewhere] to the (at the time) record-breaking success of “The Dark Knight.”
@@Edd_LShorewhy just lie for no reason? The Batman cost less to make…there was a report I saw that The Batman made over $200 million in profit for the studio including outside sources too
@@entertainmentfan1463u realize first films in franchises rarely make a billion? The Batman comes second only to Joker for making the most money in the first film of a comic book franchise…sequels are supposed to do better
The Batman and Joker franchises are just bringing in more eyes on DC and making them more money with the wins…the spin-off shows in The Batman universe will do great as well…and James Gunn’s DCU will bring success as well
The losses are generally calculated, and written off as a business expense in order to bring down the overall tax burden for the studio, or the parent organization. In addition, hard assets, like sound studios - which are used for future productions - are also written off as "production costs" against the first movie to be shot there. It is all a shell game. The actual cost for most movies is actually much less, but the studios live for the buzz surrounding big numbers. It generates hype, plants expectation, and creates desire to see the film.
Happy to see the independent theater segment back. Don't know if these have been mentioned, but I would check out The Main Cinema in Minneapolis and Zeitgeist Zinema in Duluth. I recently moved to Minnesota and fell in love with these two theaters to provide great movie experiences. ❤
Fantastic breakdown. Makes you wonder if the general audience did enjoy snyder’s aesthetic, despite the critic reaction. Especially since Aquaman and, to a lesser degree, Shazam, were the last theatrical films to contain major explicit ties to the DCEU Snyder canon. Fascinating that all the DCEU films in Hamada-era of WB/DC (post-Shazam anyway) were massive losers, despite the studio trying to course-correct from the previous aesthetic and tone. The more they tried to change, the more failure they encountered. Of course, COVID factors into the Hamada era, but Covid still wouldn’t impact merch sales like it did theater sales. Hopefully things improve for WB/DC starting in 2025.
Hey Dan, if the box office news is slow enough in the coming months that you have time to do all this for the MCU and even break it down by Saga then that'd be great. Maybe when they announce casting for F4 or the recasting of Kang then you can tie in that story with the profitability of the Multiverse Saga and compare that with the Infinity Saga to see if it can catch up. Just a suggestion, but great episode this week.
January is the only slow month. Don't forget all the movies they pushed back because of the strikes are also coming out this year. Besides, 15 is already a fair amount. Doing all 33 MCU films may be a bridge too far. You don't have to wait for Dan though. If you're really interested you can just look this stuff up. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Cinematic_Universe_films#Reception Just add another $100 million to each movie for the marketing budget. Overall the budget and marketing come to a total of $11 billion while the overall box office is $30 billion. The streaming series rarely release exactly what their budget is (probably between $100 million and $200 million for each series in total) and there's no way to know how they calculate if they made any money. I can tell you right now the Multiverse Saga has no chance of catching up. If you take out Spider-man: No Way Home, Endgame made more than all the other movies in the Multiverse Saga combined.
I LOVE the Kan-Kan so much! I'm glad it was included. I almost commented/tried to message so you would think about including them, they are our favorite theatre/restaurant. Thanks Dan!
I've typed this on a previous video before but I'd love to see a deep dive on the current budget of movies at the top end vs yesteryear. Some of the movies that people remember for their budget (Waterworld or Cleopatra for instance) just don't measure up to the movie budgets today when adjusted for inflation.
I assume they still might've made a profit through licensing deals (toys etc.), but maybe also they didn't and yeah even if it's still a major disappointment ...
once you factor in merchandising the franchise was definitely profitable for wb, but only by a fairly narrow margin and that margin likely swung under the margins on dc comic books and dc animated series merchandise.
This isn't even counting the money the WB lost on canceled projects. Batwoman was canceled after it was finished to write it off rather than release it.
@@tiffanysandmeier4753 Cancelled projects like Batgirl just emphasizes the higher ups stupidity. I still remember how Matrix 4 failed at the box office because the higher ups thought it was such a great idea to release Matrix 4 on HBO Max the exact same day it was released in theatres. Like gee, it doesn't take a genius to figure out why that was a dumb idea.
And obviously DC brought in loads of money from Superman 1978, to Tim Burton’s/Michael Keaton’s Batman movies, to The Dark Knight trilogy, and still going on today
Let’s hope things go better for DC moving forward with Gunn. It’s really sad and frustrating for WB’s superhero division to keep tripping over itself while Marvel [at least until late 2022 and all of 2023] can do no wrong regardless of quality.
Man, the loss for The Suicide Squad hurts. It was by far the best superhero movie I'd seen in years. And yet, audiences didn't show up. Only The Flash did worse, and not by much.
The reason DCEU failed was because Warner wanted to desperately catch up with Marvel instead of creating a solid game plan to create their ultimate universe. They had the materials, the stories, the characters, and legacy, yet they still blew it. MCU is down on the ground right now and the DCU has a chance to climb back on top. Could they make it happen though?
DC should not have kept going after Batman v Superman. They were stupid to pivot away from another solo Superman film to try and build hype for the franchise. When the next film brings in the new Batman and the first time Wonder Woman has been on the big screen and still underperforms it's no longer a one off problem and they should have taken a long hard look at where things were going. Instead they doubled down. Adding 2 more characters didn't work. Let's just pile them on till we make money. But now you've wasted both the first live action film with the DC trinity and the first Justice League movie. Sure you can reboot and try again but they lost the magic of that first time seeing all these characters and you can't really do it first a second time. If it works that's great but instead of trying to force a franchise into existence they should have made sure their first introduction of the Justice League was perfect because now no matter how good it gets later it'll always be tarnished by the memory of Josstice League.
maybe also those first DCEU made money because people still had a hope that the movies could be good and you didn't want to miss out... I only was happy that I gave money to WW and TSS
I.S.S. is such a generic title I never bothered to watch the trailer. It actually looks kind of interesting. Too bad the title makes it seem like a documentary about the I.S.S. and not a thriller about what happens if war breaks out on Earth and onboard the station the crews from America and Russia individually get told to take the station by any means necessary and hold it for their country.
my hope is comic book movies go back to stand alone releases every 3 years. that'll hopefully yield good solid stories and combat comic book fatigue no more multiverse/shared universe garbage
@@Asoleimani1989 I totally agree - they should move back to how they released them in the nineties. We really don't need 9 comic book movies in one year.
money has gotten tighter, so i haven't been able to buy dvds as much as before, hopefully i can buy dvds again soon if i can secure a job, when the dollar store raised its prices to 1.25 , that affected my lowly budget , which i would have been able to use to buy dvds for Shazam and others
Great analysis as always Dan. What I'll say is I believe that most DC execs will also include the non-DCEU films from this past decade (Joker, The Batman) into the overall profitability. By 2017's Justice League it's pretty clear to me the studio just went back to making mostly standalone movies, to the point where it stopped feeling like a universe. It's well known that internally WB didn't have the total cohesion that Marvel Studios had, and mostly greenlit films independent of each other. So, adding in the profits of Joker and The Batman would likely inch the overall result much closer to profitability.
20:47 If those movies have those estimated *total* profits (inclusive of box office), then that math is wrong. You should remove those 6 movies from the previous “$-1.2b” calculation. That should leave you with a much smaller “hole” than $350M. For example, Man Of Steel was around -$40M theatrically, but according to Deadline’s estimate it was overall $42M profitable, so that’s already $40M that the rest of the movies don’t need to make up for.
Never really care for DCEU “Man of Steel”, the dark tone really turn me off. And then Batman mantra of not killing nobody, then shooting everybody in sight! I found both Wonder Woman silly, specially 1984 Aquaman villain was underwhelming for me (“The better the villain, the better the movie” Gene Siskel) I only really care for “The Snyder cut” which, was ok. BUT I would only re-watch it in 20minutes increments over the week. The only reason to re-watch The Flash is for the old Batman, not the new bad one Waiting for Aquaman 2 to be in the 99 cent bin at my local Walmart 😢
@@Edd_LShore Yes, but before all of this MCU & DCEU stuff, I was a #superman guy, TV show & the 1978 movie, with #Spiderman at the bottom of the barrel. And then #Marvel did something very basic, Make a good movie that happens to be about #superheroes! 🙃
The movies were always bad starting with MOS. But the first crop of films had brands behind them Like Superman, Batman and Justice League. Then they started making Shazam, Black Adam, Flash, Suicide Squad and Harley movies all with large budgets, no brand and no quality.
I get that Snyder has a passionate fanbase, but going off the numbers (& critical reception), I can't understand why any studio would give this guy big money to make movies... The reality is that of all the movies he's directed, only Dawn of the Dead & 300 were clear runaway successes. The others (Sucker Punch, Watchmen, MoS, BvS, JL, & Rebel Moon) all were either disappointments or outright bombed. And almost all were critically panned.
@@Edd_LShore Yes, I have seen the numbers. MoS, BvS, & JL were all covered in Dan's video, so I don't need to repeat them. As Dan said, these movies lost money in their theatrical run. They may have been profitable in the long run due to ancillary sources of income, but they were still DISAPPOINTMENTS when you consider these 3 movies featured DC's biggest & most popular superheroes. Watchmen - Budget: $130M, Box Office: $187M. Sucker Punch - Bu: $82M, BO: $87.8M I shouldn't have included Rebel Moon b/c it's a Netflix movie... Even then RM's viewership on Netflix has been solid, but not spectacular. It had only the 9th best opening wknd in terms of viewership among 2023 Netflix original movies. It's not good when this massively hyped movie, which is supposed to launch a huge new IP & multi-media franchise, finishes w/ almost 1/2 the viewership of some random JLo action movie.
Hey dan a huge fan of your box office breakdowns. Something most don't know is that Man Of Steel made 160 million in profit because of the products featured in the film..... Information listed online and I remember reading back in 2014..... "Man of Steel" has a budget of about $225 million. And while Warner Bros will likely have no trouble getting that money back from ticket sales, it turns out that it has already recouped almost 3/4 of it. According to AdvertisingAge, "Man of Steel" was able to accumulate over 100 global promotional partners, which resulted in $160 million in product placement. There are companies like Warby Parker, which is offering Clark Kent-inspired glasses; Gillette, which created a video about how Superman shaves; and Chrysler, which placed two cars in the movie. Other companies include Sears, Army National Guard, Kellogg, Nokia, and Carl's Jr. "Man of Steel" now holds the record for the most partners, beating "The Lorax," which was released last year and have 70 partners.
So true about money not effecting your own likes and dislikes. I really enjoyed The Suicide Squad and even Suicide Squad. I wonder if you can do this treatment of Marvel up to End game and then post end game. Maybe Marvel should have left it at End game?
21:37 I’m confused here. If you are looking at total profitability numbers, would that include box office losses? It’s usually Topline - Expenses = Profit/Loss vs Profit - Losses. Were those profits only considering items after the box office window? Great work though as always. Long time fan since you were at SJ. Keep up the good work!
When I was a kid in the Bronx, our neighborhood theater never seemed to care about selling tickets to R-rated movies to kids under 17. When I was in my early 20s, I was living in Albany, NY. My then 16-year-old brother was visiting me, and we decided to go to the movies. We went to Crossgates Mall to see the Lou Diamond Phillips classic The First Power. After we bought tickets, the woman at the box office asked my brother how old he was, and he answered 16. When she then said he wasn't old enough to see the movie, our jaws dropped in shock. But perhaps in a preview of my future occupation as a lawyer, I told the woman: This is my brother. He is staying with me, which makes me his guardian, and I am accompanying him so he can see the movie. She let him in. It's been a while since I thought about that. Maybe I should find a DVD of The First Power that I can give to my brother for his birthday. He'll be 51 in October. That's old enough to see an R-rated movie, right?
The reason DCU/MCU era is over is because nobody can take them seriously. It's movies for kids at best. People need real challenges, a coherent scenario to be invested in a movie.
Worth considering WB as a whole. They've been running their gaming division into the ground theblast few years. Mortal Kombat 1 was clearly rushed and is filled to the brim with microtransactions. Suicide Squad is about to flop and possibly nuke their best studio. Their one lucky break was Hogwarts Legacy.
The profit headlines were all gold. Each one gave me a chuckle. Also, holy crap that's a LOT of money lost, theatrically. Also, The only DC movies I have on physical media are The Dark Knight, Killing Joke, Joker, and The Batman. Not a single DCEU film.
It is crazy that around 5-6 years ago Star Wars, Marvel and DC were all dominating pop culture to various degrees and all 3 have struggled, went into decline all at the same time. Of the 3, I think DC has the best chance of a come back.
@@ChurchWorshipandvideo agreed, Lucasfilm is a completly joke at the moment with their handling of Star wars, whislt the MCU is realy on the ropes .If Marvel handle fantstic 4 and the X men well there might be a comeback, but if they fumble, it is game over for them too..
@@BigPurp9 "Tbf of the 3 Marvel was the only one that was dominating imo, most people had already soured on the other 2" That's wrong. Star Wars is literally the only franchise of that 3 to have over 65% of their movies make over a billion dollars.
I wasn't a fan of most of the DCEU movies, but it saddens me to see Blue Beetle as a money loser. I will acknowledge it was derivative of movies in the MCU, but those movies were good! Plus, Jamie's family was a lot of fun.
@@alexpiperhalliwell yea that’s the only way it made that much but I mean if you tell anyone like 10 ,20,30 years before that that a Captain Marvel movie would make a billion dollars before a Batman v Superman movie is pretty insane 😂
It was kinda profitable for WB, but they are going to top out at $3 Billion, which is not a good look compared to MCU’s $29.8 Billion. The DCEU was a mess for WB. Poorly handled, terrible executives, behind the scenes meddling, it’s just an example of how not to make a shared universe by proxy.
Brand damage is another question to the DCEU picture. I haven’t watched any of the new films even when available on streaming. I have zero interest in James Gunn’s reboots. I am someone who came out to watch each new superhero film in theater. I’ve given Disney’s Marvels the same treatment. Bad films leave lasting impressions.
Hey Dan how would things like the dceu scrapping the batgirl movie for a "tax write off" or whatever thier reasons were effect its numbers on overall profit? would it still be considered profit
No one deep dives into topics better than Dan. I think more than what the DCEU earned, the damage it did for future movies is irreversible. Even Nolan needed to make Batman Begins which was not the biggest earner, but through word of mouth, it set things up beautifully for The Dark Knight. James Gunn needs another 'Batman Begins'. 'The Batman' did that, but its not a part of the DCEU. I will never believe that there will ever be 'superhero fatigue', they just need to make good movies, which has been very difficult for both Marvel and DC lately.
I like seeing the DCEU Profitability breakdown, but I'm not sure the math is quite accurate. The Deadline estimates would have included the profits and losses of those movies, and so should be taken out of the known losses amount. Those six movies had a total estimated profit of $148,974,543 which when taken out, would make the estimated losses of all other movies $1,393,522,376. (-$1,244,547,833 - $148,974,543) This would decrease the net to -$499,230,376 which makes it even less likely that DCEU turned a profit overall.
