Why $3 billion is a BIG deal for the DCEU

Going into the theatrical release of Wonder Woman, the DC Extended Universe had grossed $2.287 billion worldwide at the box office with Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad. To reach the mark of $3 billion total, Wonder Woman had to gross at least $713 million worldwide to do it. 

32 days into its theatrical run, Wonder Woman has grossed $713.9 million worldwide according to Box Office Mojo, which has now officially has put the DCEU at the $3 billion dollar mark. 

That's HUGE. Seriously, it cannot be understated just how spectacular and in many ways remarkable that this achievement is for the DCEU franchise as a whole. Consider the fact that through its first four movies, the franchise has been mostly polarizing at best, downright dragged through the mud and slandered at worst. Until the solo movie for Diana of Themyscira premiered, not a single movie in the DCEU had earned majority praise and had instead drawn majority scorn and hatred from so many with loyal audiences and pulpits to spread their vitriolic opinions on social media and the internet. 

Yet the franchise still grossed into the billions despite the rampant hatred, which those who dislike the franchise will tell you was simply disgruntled fans paying once to see the movie and then angrily lamenting their purchase later. Sure a lot of people did that, but not to the tune of more than $2 billion. You don't make that kind of money without an audience that WANTS to see your movies. 

And that is what makes this $3 billion mark such an incredible achievement for the DCEU: that it was able to garner so much audience support financially in the midst of firebombing critics, hateful bloggers and snarky fanboys spending the better part of the last year and a half torpedoing the franchise as a whole. When you look at what has been written and said about the DCEU, all of the reviews that urge the public not to watch the movies, all of the bad rumors about production troubles and shakeups, all of the articles calling for its ultimate demise and rebooting, and also all of the social media retorts that publicly shame the DCEU fanbase in general, it's almost a miracle that the franchise WASN'T scrapped and rebooted after BvS. 

The thing is, the reason it wasn't scrapped and rebooted is because of the power of the audience and its voting with the almighty dollar. BvS may have underperformed in the eyes of many, but it didn't bomb at all with $873.3 million. Suicide Squad may have failed to secure a release in China, but it more than succeeded at the box office with $745.6 million. That was the turning point in the DCEU essentially becoming "critic-proof." Squad was annihilated by the critics left and right just months after BvS had suffered the same fate, yet the audience didn't waver and made sure it profited at the box office. In retrospect, we shouldn't have been that surprised that the DCEU audience would turn out in droves to make Wonder Woman the resounding success that it currently is, still almost two full months away from releasing in Japan, the third-largest movie market in the world. 

There are many who claim that Wonder Woman's more straightforward approach and markedly notable humor is the saving grace of the DCEU and evidence of a clear course change to set the franchise on the right path, but that position is predicated on the idea that making $2.287 billion before then was somehow the "wrong" path and that audiences just weren't turning out to see such "mediocre" or "terrible" films, even though the numbers said that they always were. Indeed, it makes the DCEU's triumph here even more impressive considering that only the most recent film in the franchise is the positively reviewed one, allowing people that call themselves professionals to completely ignore all of the evidence before them that shows the viable audience the DCEU has had since last year, and adapt the false notion that Wonder Woman is the franchise savior. 

There are those who will point out the success of the competition in the past four movies, most notably Marvel Studios who made $3.2 billion with just its last four films, but that was of course with nearly universal critical praise for all of them and a major team-up movie in Captain America: Civil War that accounts for a third of that total. After nine years of critical acclaim for ALL of its movies and a more than established tone of operation, Marvel Studios is at a point where anything less than what it has made would be a cause for concern. The DCEU has no such luxury since it really is still in "Phase One" of the franchise and hasn't even had a full team-up movie yet until this year's Justice League on November 17. That's also not counting the critical aspect, which while it hasn't affected the ability of the franchise to succeed, has affected it's potential to earn as much money as it could have to this point. 

So considering everything that the DCEU has dealt with in the past year and a half alone, WB/DC most certainly has earned a victory lap for reaching the $3 billion mark just four films in. It should finally put to rest all talk and notions of the franchise needing to reboot or being in any sort of trouble financially or otherwise. It is abundantly clear now that in spite of the polarizing reviews and opinions, the negative stories and social media backlash that the DCEU has a dedicated and financially stable fanbase that supports it and will support it for some time to come.