Reasons Why Justice League Became The Lowest Grossing DCEU Film Of All Time

Empty Lighthouse is a reader-supported site. This article may contain affiliate links to Amazon and other sites. We earn a commission on purchases made through these links.

The first live action film version of the Justice League was supposed to be DC's answers to Marvel's The Avengers. Sadly though, the film did not meet fan expectations and it is now the lowest grossing DCEU movie of all time.

It made less money both in North America and abroad than 2013's release of Man of Steel.

As noted by Box Office Mojo, Justice League has ended its theatrical run with $229 million in North America and $657.9 million worldwide.

This is lower than the unadjusted gross Man of Steel got which was $291 million and $668 million in North America and around the world respectively.

Sadly, there are many reasons why the film failed to meet expectations and this has to due with studio meddling as well as Warner Bros trying to rush the project out of the gate.

Not to mention the reception for most DCEU movies have been mixed.

Man of Steel is a polarizing movie and wasn't as well received as it could have been.

While some fans loved the amount of action the movie had, others hated the way Superman just destroyed everything in his path leaving Metropolis to be a big mess by the end of the film.

Things were supposed to improve with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but arguably things got even worse.

Batman v Superman was even more hated by movie goers than Man of Steel as it went on to win a couple of Razzie Awards.

The downward spiral of the DCEU continued as Suicide Squad later that year was also a polarizing movie. Sure the movie still made decent money at the Box Office, but the DCEU's reputation had started to dwindle. 

Thankfully, things started to look up for Warner Bros and DC as Wonder Woman became a huge success. It's the highest grossing DCEU movie in North America and received praise by lots of people that watched it.

Not to mention people started to like Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman after her initial casting was met with criticism. Things were finally going great, until Justice League came out a few months later. 

Even though Wonder Woman stars in Justice League, she wasn't enough to save the damaged reputation of the DCEU brand. The film failed to excite the masses and the downward spiral continued. 

One of the main reasons why the film failed at the Box Office is probably because people were turned off by Batman v Superman.

Lots of people were hyped for the release of Batman v Superman, but that all changed when movie goers actually watched it.

Batman v Superman still has its many supporters, but average movie goers just didn't like it as much as they did. Justice League was still directed by Zack Snyder so people expected the worse. 

Behind the scenes, things were not looking good for Justice League anyway. Snyder was taken off as the main director with Joss Whedon coming in to do extensive re-shoots. 

Arguably Whedon may have made Justice League even more unwatchable by adding in lots of unfunny jokes and cutting out a lot of content that Snyder had planned.

Warner Bros is also to blame as they wanted to cut down the movie to only two hours long.

The biggest change I did not like was Whedon's decision to bring Danny Elfman to score the movie. Junkie XL was the original composer, but Elfman replaced him and made a very forgettable and underwhelming score. 

One of the things I like best about the DCEU is the music. Hans Zimmer's score for Man of Steel is excellent and the work he did with Junkie XL on Batman v Superman is also great. 

Sadly, Elfman decided not to recycle the previous themes of the DCEU and resurrected even older themes from the past that sounded really corny. The score was just as underwhelming as the rest of the movie. 

Another big factor as to why the movie failed was because Steppenwolf was a bland bad guy. He was just a big CGI villain with no real backstory or character development since most of his scenes got cut or condensed. 

There's many other reasons why Justice League failed, but there's too many to list here. I'm personally hoping WB and DC can recover from this as I still enjoy Henry Cavill and Gal Gadot as Superman and Wonder Woman.

They just need better writers and directors to make them shine bright in future films.

Wanna read more on this? Check these out: Zack Snyder's Justice League Will Be Released On Blu-ray (more); Zack Snyder's Justice League Has A 4K Blu-ray Steelbook Listing (more); Movie Review: Zack Snyder's Justice League (more); Knightmare Batman and Black Suit Superman Hot Toys Set Revealed (more).

And here are some more related articles: Rotten Tomatoes Rating Revealed For Zack Snyder's Justice League (more); Zack Snyder's Justice League McFarlane Toys Revealed (more); Zack Snyder's Justice League Has Six Different Chapters (more).

A few more: Zack Snyder's Justice League Ends On A Cliffhanger (more); Zack Snyder Isn't Being Paid To Finish Justice League (more).

Warner Bros.