As Warner Bros. begins to stray from the Marvel strategy of continuity between films and embraces its more unique, and even obscure, characters, audiences have begun to respond more favorably and now more willing to open up their wallets.
It's no secret that Warner Bros.' DC movies have struggled to mimic the same success of rival Marvel.
More importantly,"Shazam" is a chance for DC to continue to build on its recent series of successes with"Wonder Woman" and"Aquaman." It spins the tale of a young teenager who transforms into an adult superhero when he shouts the name"Shazam" — think"Superman" meets"Big." Warner Bros. has a long history with superhero films, particularly from DC. It distributed the original Superman flicks starring Christopher Reeve in the late '70s and '80s as well as a number of Batman films from Adam West's take in 1966 to Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney's time donning the cowl in the '80s and '90s.
By the time"Man of Steel" hit theaters, however, Marvel Studios had already cranked out six films. This included the blockbuster"Avengers" flick, which grossed a whopping $1.5 billion at the global box office, according to Comscore data. Marvel, which was acquired by Disney in 2009, proved that audiences were not only hungry for superhero films, but would show up in droves to see their favorite characters work together to defeat a common enemy.
"Marvel has always understood that it is first and foremost about characters," Alisha Grauso, editorial lead at ticketing site Atom Tickets, said."We are in an age now where we are very character driven and the fact that DC veered away from the fundamental core of its characters, I don't think that worked."
However, the praise for Warner Bros. would fade before the end of the year."Justice League" hit theaters less than six months after"Wonder Woman" and the reception was lackluster, to say the least. Murky visuals, weak storytelling and poor chemistry between the major characters earned the film a 40 percent Rotten Tomatoes score.
Ezra Miller, the Flash from"Justice League," made a bid in March to pen the script for a Flash film to ensure that he could stay on as the speedy Barry Allen in his own feature film."There is some fatigue on Batman and Superman, but there's such a deep vault of superheroes and villains that have been untapped with DC," Bagby said."There's tons of potential.
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