BvS’s Record-Breaking Friday-Sunday Box-Office Drop

Dawn of Justice sets a record for the biggest superhero weekend decline at the box office.

By Scott Collura

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice tore up the box office this past weekend, making $166.1 million domestically and another $254 million in foreign sales for a total take of approximately $420.1 million. These numbers make it the biggest superhero movie opening ever for Warner Bros., the biggest Easter weekend movie in history, and the fifth best opener in North American movie history. But for all those achievements, a new report indicates that the film has also broken a more dubious record.

According to Forbes, Batman v Superman has set a new record for the biggest Friday-to-Sunday box-office drop for a modern superhero movie. The film dipped 55% from its $82 million Friday debut to its $37 million gross on Sunday. To break that down, the grosses declined 38% Friday to Saturday and another 27% from Saturday to Sunday. By comparison, Forbes cites the Fantastic Four reboot’s decline from last summer, which only dropped 48% Friday-to-Sunday.

Now that said, Sunday was of course the Easter holiday, which could be part of the reason for the steep decline. But the film did also suffer that Friday-to-Saturday dip of 38%, the second worst drop for a superhero release after only 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises’ 40%. (That film’s opening weekend could’ve been affected by the tragic 2012 Aurora shooting.)

Using 24 modern superhero movies as a guide, Forbes suggests that Batman v Superman could continue to see a decline in box office that would put its final domestic tally somewhere in the neighborhood of $400 million. By comparison, the two most recent Batman films prior to BvS, The Dark Knight Rises and The Dark Knight, made $448 million and $534 million domestically (not adjusted for inflation).

BvS received a lukewarm "B" CinemaScore from domestic audiences. These exit polls are frequently used within the industry to gauge word of mouth on a film.

Whatever the case, Warners has done well for itself so far with Batman v Superman. The question now is how well will the film do in the long term?

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