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‘Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice’ Hits Box Office Success, But Should Zack Snyder Direct ‘Justice League’?

By Stephen Jordan
Published on: 09:16 PST, Mar 27, 2016

Zack Snyder’s Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice premiered to rave reviews from fans, harsh reviews from critics, and saw an opening weekend gross of over $420 million. This is the biggest domestic opening for Warner Bros., and the studio has already announced their plans to move forward with The Justice League: Part One, along with several other films taking place in this new DC Extended Universe. However with so many people divided on BvS this weekend, this brings up an interesting question about Zack Snyder’s involvement with these projects. There are now a number of comic book fans wondering if Snyder should direct The Justice League.

With the box office success Dawn of Justice earned this weekend, along with some very high praise from audience members, will probably be enough to keep the studio feeling safe about Snyder’s directorial involvement in future films. Maybe if Batman V Superman didn’t open with such huge numbers, finding a replacement director Justice League might seem more plausible. But even I question whether or not he should stay involved as a director. For WB’s DCEU, this is now their second divisive film in a row — one that has gotten even more negative reviews than the previous film, Man of Steel.

Everyone tends to get hung up on the Rotten Tomatoes score, assuming that it is an actual grade for the film. But the percentage isn’t a grade, the percentage simply represents how many critics liked the film. Currently, out of 263 critics, 77 critics liked the film, 186 did not, which means 29 percent of critics liked the movie, according to the RT aggregation system. And keep in mind, that’s only professional critics, that does not include the scores of regular audience members. There is a separate percentage for audience members, which is currently at 73 for BvS, out of 162,322 RT users.

Zack Snyder definitely made an even more divisive film with Batman V Superman than Man of Steel. If Snyder will continue to direct Justice League: Part One, which he probably will, both he and Warner Bros. may have to do some more work on their scripts and overall approach, so that they can secure more appeal with general audiences.

Some will compare this to the Transformers franchise at Paramount and simply declare that WB has nothing to worry about and should just ignore the critics and just make the films for the fans. That’s not going to happen, because Transformers has nothing to compete with, no other studio is making a franchise filled with massive robots. Michael Bay certainly isn’t going out of his way to make incredibly intelligent science-fiction, those are purely summer action movies, nothing more. Warner Bros., on the other hand, is actively competing against Fox, Sony and Marvel Studios. When a string of Marvel Studios movies and Fox’s superhero movies are getting praise, pushing and redefining the genre, and yours are divisive and upsetting fans, that’s not a good look.

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice was certainly made for the hardcore fans and is filled with things only they will register and understand. But it needed to also be accessible for a wider audience, and it wasn’t. Plenty of easter eggs and references in the film will leave non-comic book fans scratching their heads. One dream sequence (or “Knightmare”), in particular, is filled with things only a DC Comics reader will understand, while it will look like complete and utter randomness to someone else.

“I’m getting ready to start Justice League on the 11th of April,” Zack Snyder told Yahoo! Movies, “so in like two weeks we start shooting and it’s an intense, awesome, and gigantic undertaking because Bruce [Wayne] is having to go out and sort of ‘seven samurai’ the Justice League together, which is fun.”

If we don’t hear anything about Zack Snyder being replaced and a new director being brought on within the next two weeks, we can assume Warner Bros. isn’t too worried. David Ayer’s Suicide Squad will be the real key in determining whether or not this DCEU will work. This will be the first DCEU film directed by someone other than Snyder. If Suicide Squad turns out to be both a critical and financial success, WB can rest easy knowing their other DCEU films will work.

[Photo via Yahoo! Movies/YouTube]

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