Will Batman v Superman Stay Hot?

Warner Bros. has a lot invested in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and not just the blockbuster film's quarter-billion-dollar production budget. When you add in marketing costs, the total comes closer to half a billion, but even that isn't the biggest risk the studio is taking. Batman v Superman is meant to be the launch pad for a series of films in the vein of Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe that Warner Bros. hopes will prop up the studio for years to come. That's why the negative reviews of the film ahead of its release made everyone so nervous.

That nervousness turned to relief when the movie had a huge opening weekend, but there's still some worry about how well the film will hold up after the opening-week hype dies down. Even the initial elation was tempered a bit when predictions of a $170-million weekend were back pedalled slightly to a $166-million actual take. The film was not, as initially reported, the biggest opening in Warner Bros. history, but the second biggest, behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.

Observers say that Batman v Superman will have to earn at least a billion dollars in worldwide ticket sales to avoid being labelled at least a moderate disappointment, and even after its big opening weekend, the film is still $580,000,000 away from that milestone. Batman v Superman's opening is comparable to that of 2013's Iron Man 3, and that film did indeed go on to earn $1.2 billion worldwide. However, Iron Man 3 raked in considerably better reviews than Batman v Superman did, and it remains to be seen whether audiences will get more critical of the DC movie as time goes on. In any case, you can be sure that Warner Bros. will be monitoring the situation closely.