It’s been revealed that Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam film has lost between $50 and $100 million for Warner Bros Discovery since it was released in cinemas. This news comes to us via Variety, who’ve been crunching the numbers, and they’ve worked out that the movie has been a huge flop for the Hollywood movie studio.
When the movie was first released in cinemas, it looked as though things were going to go well for the Dwayne Johnson-lead DC Studios movie. The film performed well in its opening weekend. However, since then, it’s only managed to make $387 million globally after seven weeks on the big screen.
That might seem like a big sum of money, especially given the fact that the movie came out when many parts of the world are still feeling the effects of the COVID-19 virus and pandemic. However, the movie wasn’t cheap to make and needed to make Warner Bros Discovery a lot of money. They spent an estimated $195 million making the film, and then you’ll have to add an estimated $100 million on the film’s worldwide marketing campaign.
Black Adam has lost between $50 and $100 million for Warner Bros
Credit: DC Studios
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According to Variety’s insiders at Warner Bros, COVID-related box office limitations led the studio to scale back the global advertising campaign to $80 million. OK, so they saved $20 million on marketing. But still, the film would have cost the studio an estimated $275 million, and in order to break even, the movie would have to make at least twice that amount.
The film needed to earn around $600 million worldwide to break even and it had to surpass that lofty benchmark to make a profit. This is all according to their sources familiar with the financials. However, box office experts have predicted that the movie will make about $400 million worldwide, which is not enough for the movie to break even!
Variety suggests that Black Adam will lose Warner Bros Discovery between $50 million to $100 million in its theatrical run. Variety’s sources close to Warner Bros. Pictures have disputed those numbers. They claim the movie will only need $400 million to break even. However, when the film was greenlit, the studio estimated it would require about $450 million to break even, so there’s a bit of a disconnect with the numbers.
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Moreover, the outlet’s sources argue that things are changing given the fact that after the pandemic era, the home entertainment industry has become more profitable, with the movie being available to buy, rent and watch on streaming platforms. This means that ancillary revenue streams have grown more profitable with shorter theatrical windows. New releases now hit home entertainment platforms in 33 days rather than 75, which reduces the money needed to revive marketing campaigns for a digital launch. With ancillary revenues, sources at Warner Bros. say that the film is poised to get into the black.
Even if that is the case, the movie will still not be the box office giant that Warner Bros. Pictures was expecting it to be when they greenlit it. This puts plans for a sequel in serious jeopardy. Will they end up making a sequel? I highly doubt it, especially with DC Studios now under new leadership. James Gunn and Peter Safran will have their own plans, and I don’t think they will involve Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam. They might involve Henry Cavill’s Superman, but even that’s all up in the air at the moment.
This all comes after it was revealed that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever managed to cross $733 million at the worldwide box office. That’s a number that Black Adam and Dwayne Johnson can only dream of right now.
Jaume Collet-Serra (Jungle Cruise) directed Black Adam. The movie starred Johnson as the titular character, and the likes of Aldis Hodge joined him as Hawkman, Pierce Brosnan as Doctor Fate, Noah Centineo as Atom Smasher and Quintessa Swindell as Cyclone.
What do you make of this news? Do you think Black Adam was a box office failure? Do you think they’ll make another movie after the first one performed so poorly at the box office? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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