All DC Films Ranked by Box Office Multipliers

General Discussion Movies & TV
1

DC currently had 40 theatrical releases, thus I decided to rank them all by their multipliers at the box office. In other words that is how much money they made compared to their opening weekend (for example
a film that made 20 million its opening weekend and finished at 110 million means 5.5 multiplier).

This is normally a good indicator for how positive or negative word of mouth was during its theatrical release. Normally Summer films (June-July) have smaller multipliers, while August-November have high ones with December having the largest multipliers. The release month is at the end.

                          Ranked by Multiplier

1-Superman 17.97881463718412 December

2-Superman II 7.672460517953838 June (Highest opening in history at the time)

3-Batman 6.203766356054691 June (Highest opening in history at the time)

4-Aquaman 4.936537608877877 December

5-Mask of the Phantasm 4.720595810836362 December

6-Superman III 4.489890661251792 June

7-Batman Begins 4.212574017179863 June

8-Red 4.153231353412426 October

9-League of Super Pets 4.071439442472976 Late July

10-Wonder Woman 3.995714579214082 June

11-Superman Returns 3.808524343421777 June

12-Batman Returns 3.564015233768223 June (Highest opening in history at the time)

13-Joker 3.486935156263408 October

14-Batman Forever 3.486465640352715 June (Highest
opening in history at the time)

15-The Dark Knight 3.366835206005868 July (Highest opening in history at the time)

16-The Lego Batman Movie 3.315828013366974 February

17-Red 2 2.951092344804438 July

18-Teen Titans go to the Movies 2.861367323175096 Late July

19-Wonder Woman 1984 2.802128876274798 December (C)

20-The Dark Knight Rises 2.785422546882897 July

21-Superman IV 2.759226354809909 July

22-The Batman 2.75613294111579 March

23-V for Vendetta 2.749789410794803 March

24-Shazam 2.623508097119154 April

25-Constantine 2.552182736608277 February

26-Birds of Prey 2.549482510112006 February

27-Black Adam 2.50957107648114 October

28-The Losers 2.508033085741671 April

29-Batman and Robin 2.503351382543701 June

30-Man of Steel 2.495687791534994 June

31-Supergirl 2.49142865706943 November

32-Justice League 2.440524623458739 November

33-Suicide Squad 2.431886498497542 August

34-Catwoman 2.407046012631933 July

35-Green Lantern 2.192810538579133 December

36-The Suicide Squad 2.129995842462331 August (C)

37-Batman V. Superman 1.990033573634545 March

38-Steel 1.966480780812534 August

39- The Flash 1.964500101819139 June

40-Jonah Hex 1.960662085580733 June

41-Watchmen 1.947135665894295 March

42- Shazam Fury of the Gods 1.914174340289404 March

If ranked by total domestic gross then it is-

1-The Dark Knight 3.366835206005868 July (Highest opening in history at the time)

2-The Dark Knight Rises 2.785422546882897 July

3-Wonder Woman 3.995714579214082 June

4-The Batman 2.75613294111579 March

5-Joker 3.486935156263408 October

6-Aquaman 4.936537608877877 December

7-Batman V. Superman 1.990033573634545 March

8-Suicide Squad 2.431886498497542 August

9-Man of Steel 2.495687791534994 June

10-Batman 6.203766356054691 June (Highest
opening in history at the time)

11-Justice League 2.440524623458739 November

12-Batman Begins 4.212574017179863 June

13-Superman Returns 3.808524343421777 June

14-Batman Forever 3.486465640352715 June (Highest opening in history at the time)

15-The Lego Batman Movie 3.315828013366974 February

16-Black Adam 2.50957107648114 October

17-Batman Returns 3.564015233768223 June (Highest opening in history at the time)

18- Shazam 2.623508097119154 April

19-Superman 17.97881463718412 December

20-Green Lantern 2.192810538579133 December

21-Superman II 7.672460517953838 June (Highest opening in history at the time)

22- The Flash 1.964500101819139 June

23-Watchmen 1.947135665894295 March

24-Batman and Robin 2.503351382543701 June

25-League of Super Pets 4.071439442472976 Late July

26-Red 4.153231353412426 October

27-Birds of Prey 2.549482510112006 February

28-Constantine 2.552182736608277 February

29-V for Vendetta 2.749789410794803 March

30-Superman III 4.489890661251792 June

31- Shazam Fury of the Gods 1.914174340289404 March

32- The Suicide Squad 2.129995842462331 August (C)

33-Red 2 2.951092344804438 July

34-Wonder Woman 1984 2.802128876274798 December (C)

35-Catwoman 2.407046012631933 July

36-Teen Titans go to the Movies 2.861367323175096 Late July

37-The Losers 2.508033085741671 April

38-Superman IV 2.759226354809909 July

39-Supergirl 2.49142865706943 November

40-Jonah Hex 1.960662085580733 June

41-Mask of the Phantasm 4.720595810836362 December

42-Steel 1.966480780812534 August

I keep hearing the Covid Pandemic ruined Birds of Prey. I never heard that until well after it was out of theaters, and I looked into that. It got 5 weekends before The Covid pandemic started, and by then its legs were nearly dead. It is doubtful that cost it much money, but it would have been a few spots higher.

I had no idea Green Lantern did that awful. With its December release that is probably the actual worst performer on the list.

I did not expect Watchmen to be dead last. With how legendarily bad Batman V. Superman’s legs are I thought it would be last. It is amazing that Snyder directed 2 films with less than a 2 multiplier.

At some point in the nineties films went from small openings and really long theatrical windows to the reverse. To compare some of these older films to their contemporary releases.

Jaws had 36.81930487134981 multiplier. Now switching to highest grossing film of their year-

Grease had 17.89129201919497 multiplier. Slightly less than Superman

Raiders had 25.55099295999927. Way above Superman II.

Last Crusade has 6.716800032267052 a little above Batman.

So overall Batman and Superman still had great legs competing with beloved films, while Superman II’s legs were not impressive at the time.

Do I even have to say Superman III had worse legs than Return of the Jedi?

I do not expect good legs for Shazam Fury of the Gods, so hopefully that first weekend is a huge payday.

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41

Batman (1966) made #3,900,000 at the Box Office, but opening week didn’t really exist for that film. It turned a profit, but was not a huge success.

It had to contend with a little film called Empire Strikes Back that came out the month before.

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The more I study box office the more I realize that is a big accomplishment for a TV series. It is a very hard sale to get somebody to pay money to watch it in theaters when they can watch an episode for free.

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4

What about the George Reeve’s theatrical release of the series pilot? You got something against little people? :smiley:

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That’s impressive Superman II and Batman '89 were the biggest release of the time, yet still had massive multipliers!
However, the fact that Mask of the Phantasm is high on the list, while earning essentially nothing at the box office, shows the limits of how far you can apply the results.
Thanks for figuring all those stats out!

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It was not on the list. I cannot find information on its opening numbers or its domestic gross.

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It shows that it never had much excitement, but it then had really good word of mouth.

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I think the creators would agree that there was no word of mouth (in addition to no push by the studio to publicize it). Maybe it had heavy competition the weekend it was released. Some of the films performing badly on heree will be just a case of being released right before something else premiered that became a big hit.

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Wow, very interesting info. Loving the new profile picture, btw!

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Yes, timing is crucial. When researching this I remember thinking Watchmen should have been an August release. Shazam is a well known example of a film coming out at an awful time.

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For the domestic gross did you add the extra wrinkle of adjusting for inflation? I wonder how that would change the ranking?

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Adjusting for inflation is still not enough. There is adjusting for population and the (until recently) continuously growing culture of going to the theater, and with numbers that big inflation calculators are not that reliable.

Still somebody on reddit tried it, and here is his post.

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There are so many variables in ranking films. Gone With The Wind is the all time gross leader when adjusted for inflation, but it has the advantage of being rereleased many times in its history. Also, there was no television to compete with it early on. I always cringe when Avatar is listed as the all time box office leader.

I disagree with you the continuously growing culture of going to the theater. I thought theater attendance was falling for years and that higher ticket cost (regular, 3D, and IMAX) has led to higher box office grosses.

We’ll never know because of the murky accounting practices of the film industry. Thank you for the post as this topic is always interesting.

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I rank them based on where they were at their all time peak not counting rereleases, but it is hard to research that.

That makes Titanic the biggest box office hit of all time most likely since it doubled the record and even without its rereleases is still one of the highest grossing films of all time 25 years later.

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The other difference is movies had a much longer initial release as they were rolled out city by city. When did the original release really end.

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Updated for Flash

17

This is a very old quote, but since it runs contrary to what I recall, I double-checked. Birds of Prey was released on Feb. 7, 2020, and on Feb. 10, 2020, WB and media were reporting its opening weekend suffered due to the coronavirus.
But to say there was some definitive start date to the pandemic sounds wrong anyway