Having soared to record heights on its opening weekend, Batman v Superman looks likely to plummet to record lows on its second, thus proving it is possible for a movie to be both a hit and a flop at the same time.
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Zack Snyder's superhero flick took $US420 million ($A547 million) globally on its opening weekend. It set a new domestic (as in North American) record opening for a Warner Bros. film, while its $166 million haul was also a new record for March openings generally in the US.
Now, though, box office analysts are predicting the film could tumble by as much as 70 per cent at the US box office in its second weekend, more than any major superhero film before.
Some of that will be due to the fact that last weekend was Easter, a holiday, but much of it is surely attributable to the combined effect of negative reviews and bad word of mouth.
While fanboys (and girls) seemingly defied critical judgement last weekend to flock to the movie, collective sentiment now seems to be turning against it.
That's bad news not just for director Snyder, but also for Warners, which has quite deliberately positioned this film as a springboard from which to mount a challenge to the box office supremacy of Disney/Marvel's Avengers franchise.
Though it ostensibly pits the two most famous characters in the DC Comics stable against each other, the real point (though it is easy to lose amid all the pointless mayhem) is to introduce Wonder Woman (played by Israeli actress Gal Gadot) and, fleetingly, Aquaman (Jason Momoa) and The Flash (Ezra Miller).
With Batman and Superman, these characters are set to be the key figures in the Justice League franchise that Warner Bros hopes will generate the same sort of business Marvel's Avengers movies and associated spin-offs – the Iron-Man, Hulk and Captain America films (Spider-Man, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four are owned by rival studios) – have enjoyed.
Snyder is intimately tied into the whole Justice League project at Warners. He is slated to direct both the first Justice League movie, due for release in 2017, and its sequel. He is also on board the separate Wonder Woman, Flash and Aquaman films as producer.
We don't know whether Warners is now questioning the wisdom of that commitment, but one media outlet has reported an "unbelievable turn of events" in which Snyder was dumped from the Justice League film, with Australian director George Miller stepping in to replace him.
The latino-review report was replete with a press release from Warners, claiming the studio was "thrilled to announce that George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road) will be directing Justice League, and claiming that Snyder "has been battling fatigue", as a result of which it had been "amicably decided" that Miller "is in a better position to bring the film to fruition".
A couple of embedded tweets from Snyder confirmed the news. "I've been a fan of George's since The Road Warrior," Snyder wrote in one of them. "I can't wait to see what he does with #JusticeLeague."
While that news may have brought a spontaneous eruption of cheering from fans around the world, it was no more than an elaborate, and rather well-executed, April Fools prank.
Still, you have to wonder if there aren't some people in Hollywood right now wondering if it's not such a bad idea.
