The residual effects of the massive dropoff in revenue for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice has already begun for Warner Bros.
Earlier today, Warner Bros. announced that both Wonder Woman and The Jungle Book: Origins have had their respective release dates changed. Wonder Woman was pushed up to June 2nd, 2017 from its previous June 23rd release date and Andy Serkis’s Jungle Book adaptation (not to be confused with Disney’s Jon Favreau helmed live action version coming out later this year) was pushed back an entire year from October 6th, 2017 to October 19th, 2018.
Yes, the fallout of the Batman v Superman experiment is likely to change a lot of plans whether by Warner Bros. or DC Comics. Although the film has now surpassed the $700 million mark worldwide, the massive drop in sales percentage following its initial release two weeks ago has been staggering. Don’t forget that even though the estimated budget of Batman v Superman was $250 million per IMDb, the marketing campaign was huge and will definitely affect the total profit.
Along with the release date changes, two unannounced DC films have now been slated for October 5th, 2018 and November 1st, 2019. One of these films could potentially be a standalone Batman film starring Ben Affleck being pushed up in DC’s plans as was previously pondered in the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice review on this site.
No matter what the eventual outcome of today’s news is, Warner Bros. took a huge gamble on Batman v Superman and they have already begun to feel the effects from it. The next WB/DC release is August’s Suicide Squad which is actually undergoing reshoots. For now, we’ll all just have to wait and see if more changes are on the way following its release.
