Thor: Ragnarok vs Justice League (Box Office)

Thor: Ragnarok opens up on November 3rd, 2017 with Justice League opening up just two weeks later on November 17, 2017. On the surface, it seems laughable that a solo Thor movie could ever come close to the first Justice League ensemble film. But in all honesty, after seeing the trailers and overall hype from general audiences, I don't know how much Justice League is going to "win" by, if it does at all.

Reasons I am convinced Thor could make more:

1. Thor dominated social media conversation the week after SDCC, with almost 4x the amount of new conversations generated than Justice League. (Source)
2. The Thor: Ragnarok Teaser Trailer still holds the record for the most views ever in 24 hours for a superhero film, with 136 million views. Justice League is not even in the top 20. (Source)
3. Thor: Ragnarok is reported to only be 100 minutes long. Which would make it the shortest MCU movie. Justice League is reported to be around 3 hours long, which would make JL almost double the runtime as Thor. This would make Thor have many more theatrical showings, almost double, during the course of a day. This means, Thor would have more opportunities to earn money in theaters.
4. It is being marketed as a mini Avengers film, with Thor, Hulk, and Loki in multiple scenes together. Also a confirmed appearance of Doctor Strange, and many popular Thor villains such as Hela and Surtur. Maybe even Thanos

So based off of this information, which film will have the higher:

• Domestic Box Office
• Foreign Box Office
• Worldwide Box Office
• Opening Weekend
• Legs (Multiplier)

But it's the JL....

• Domestic Box Office-- Justice League
• Foreign Box Office-- Justice League
• Worldwide Box Office-- Justice League
• Opening Weekend-- Justice League
• Legs (Multiplier)-- Justice League.

JL is definitely going to make more, ragnarok looks like its trying too hard

Thor is gonna perform very well barring negative reviews/word of mouth which is unlikely. but jls appeal is much bigger and far reaching than thors. Jl will almost assuredly out perform thor

@DammeFavour:

It may to you, but to general audiences that certainly is not the case tbh

@thespartanb345t:

That is not even close to an argument. Know how many times I have seen "Its the DC Trinity" argument for BvS vs Civil War, and look how that turned out

Thor will probably make more considering everyone is comfortable with the MCU.

@cosmicmuffin: I was joking. I actually agree with you.

It might be close, because they do get double the money due to runtimes...

Thor will outperform only if JL bombs.

I mean, im not really doubting that you are wrong but do you have any comments about my 4 points

And that is why I provided two points that had nothing to do with Social Media. And no, it is not a terrible way. Social Media in the long run can determine a lot. It is what hurt BvS, it is what helped Guardians of the Galaxy.

I honestly don't know but I would guess JL but after that CW and BvS box office thing, I wouldn't say it's guaranteed if it's bad.

I myself am looking more forward to Thor than Justice League. I'm cautiously optimistic for Justice League, but Batman V Superman left a bad taste in my mouth.

That Variety article is certainly a (new) and relevant variable for Thor Ragnarok hype... But i still prefer to put these movies in different equations... (very different properties)...

@cosmicmuffin: Trailer views and social media buzz don't covert into box office. Otherwise we are to assume that Thor would make more than The Last Jedi, which is not happening.

Having more shows does not increase the number of people who are planning on watching the movie. It might help Thor get a bigger weekend than it would have gotten had it been 150 mins long, but the multiplier would be worse. Ultimately, the movie would end up where it was supposed to.

ugh, this won't stop, will it?

Ragnarok will make more.

Thor is one of the lowest box office draws for Marvel I don't see it making more than JL

You'd expect the JL to out do Thor, but marvel has some big players with goldblum blanchette urban also fenris wolf and surtur it's not gonna be easy I can say that much

@marvelanddcfan24: There is a reason why though because both thor movies were bad to mediocre.

@marvelanddcfan24 said:

Actually the first 2 Thor movies (Thor/Dark World) made more money than the first 2 Cap movies (First Avenger/Winter Soldier)...

@ready_4_madness: No, dvd and Blu Ray sales do not affect the Box Office numbers. I agree with you though, quality does matter in the end. But it is easier to predict the box office numbers for a movie than the quality of a movie.

@chris-sama: Wait, Urban is in Thor? :O

Edit: Oh, he is Skurge!!!! How I didn't recognize him before??

No way to know. I think it'll 100% be which movie is perceived as better. That's why CW (which , IMHO was mediocre) beat BvS (Also mediocre IMHO) but my opinion does not equal general consensus. It's also why I think WW will probably out do Homecoming. And I didn't think either of those would happen. Due to track record, one has to take the MCU movie if you just want a projection. But I do think if both movies are perceived as being equally good, JL will "win." I m not willing to bet that will be the case. As I've stated before. I have a lot of faith in Aquaman and The Batman movies for the DCEU. I do not have faith in JL.

Justice League probably

No idea. Would love the salt if JL failed tho.

To early for this the safer bet would be Thor.

In my opinion if they receive similar acclaim JL should come out on top. At the end of the day none of those points will make as much impact as the movie itself, if JL is received worse but not by much I would expect it to do similarly in BO as Thor. So the only way I see Thor getting significanty better numbers is if JL bombs critically.

You can say it doesn't matter that much but I would argue brand names do still matter (for example Dark World which was very mediocre made almost as much in the BO as Winter Soldier which is a much better movie) and I am sure people want to see more of Batman, Supes and WW. Sure BvS didn't do that well but that's because it completely bombed in critical reception not to say the amount of social media buzz with stuff like sad affleck or martha which I am certain had a hand in tanking the interest in the movie given how popular for example facebook is nowadays.

Hell I'd argue the social media aspect had more influence in BvS drops that the RT score and critical reviews did. I don't think many people outside the US or movie related forums care about RT scores, see stuff like Transformers and Fast and Furious franchises who have been criticized since forever and still make bank save for last Transformers.

I've never thought about it until you mentioned it but having a short runtime might be pretty smart from Marvel/Disney given how close it is to JL, that way whether JL does great or not Ragnarok will be able to get more showings in that 2 week period, managing to avoid competition in a sense.

' When I make a thread comparing trailer views I get called insecure lol

On topic... We'll see. Box office this year has been very surprising. I think thor would be hard pressed to pass WW let alone beat JL.

I think JL could beat Ragnarok but I think it needs to be fairly well received in order to. I think Thor crosses $800m almost for sure. JL will need to win people over to some degree I think and then has a semi death sentence in week 5 when The Last Jedi comes out. I think a lot of people may be choosing between Thor and JL since they come out so close so word of mouth will matter.

JL.

Ragnarok will make more, without a doubt.

The MCU is more popular and better right now.

The trailer has way more views as well.

Look how Civil War compared to Batman v Superman turned out.

I predict Ragnarok will make close to 900 million, and JL will make over a billion. Both are going to be huge box office draws, and Thor may have more trailer views, but Batman and Superman are still more popular right now. If WW can make 700 million by herself, JL is going to surpass that.

Also no way in hell will thor have a better opening.

It will make at most 130M domestic opening weekend while JL will make atleast 150M DOM

Also please take into account other forms of social media. In the last two trailers, JL had 15 million more FB views, 7 times as many reshares on FB, and 3* as many retweets on Twitter. Thor had 5 million more views on YT.

@thelastdragonborn:

My "136 million views" point takes in account for all platforms, not just youtube.

The salt if Ragnarok makes more would be epic. I think JL will have a bigger box office (unless is as bad as BvS or worse). If I had to bet, I'd bet for JL, but I wouldn't be surprised if Ragnarok gets close or even surpass it

I think it'll be close in WW figures in the end. Thor may even slightly edge JL in foreign numbers with chance of stronger legs. Knowing Waititi's art, it's tailored made for critics while JL is a big unknown imo. Domestic, opening and most likely eventual WW figures will still be JL just slightly however.

Wait why are people bringing up Bvs VS Civil War? The SOLE reason BvS did worse than Civil War was because it got atrocious reviews and bad WOM. If BvS got decent reviews it would have surpassed a billion easily and beat Civil War.

BvS had the biggest worldwide opening in cbm history with 422 million. With good reviews and decent wom it would have done atleast 1.2 billion.

I think JL and thor will depend on JL doing bad. If JL has decent reviews and WOM, it will eat up Thor's legs and Thor will likely tap out when Star Wars hits and JL, provided decent WOM, will have some decent holiday legs.

Does it really matter? We seem to be at a point where we should all want comic book movies (regardless of studio) to be good and successful for longevity of the genre. Eventually Hollywood will get anime and video game properties right and they will compete with comic book movies imo.

@rbt said:

@cosmicmuffin:

It certainly does not "convert" to box office earnings but it is still a good indication of how well a movie will do. Almost every single movie on that list that has already been released did amazing, save Transformers... Which still did pretty decent.

To a certain degree, yes. But saying that a movie with more social media buzz will perform better is not always true. In fact, in most cases it isn't. Since, not all movie goers are on social media. And not every movie goer on social media likes to talk about it on social media. Take me for example. I'm excited for both movies and would most likely watch both on Thursday paid previews, but I have only talked about Ragnarok on social media because its much closer.

The thing is though, it's a well known Marvel character in a very well hyped up movie. A lot of people do not even bother going to weekend premiers of huge films because every single showing is taken up a week before the film is released. With a big film like Thor having more showtimes available, more people will be able to see the film. Just imagine this example: A very popular theater in New York City is always jam packed. For the respected opening weekends, the theater can show 10 Justice League showings a day and 15 Thor showings a day. I can promise you that the theater would be full for each one, meaning Thor in this scenario would be getting more money. Movies apart of big franchises usually always sell out at popular, urban areas. Even if Justice League was a little more hyped, it would not change the amount of showings it could have a day. If that makes sense. All I am saying is there is not really any situation where this could hurt Thor.

Again, having more showtimes during a weekend means only one thing. Bigger first weekend collection. It does not mean more collection during the movie's life run. Since, more people would watch the movie during opening weekend, it would result in less people watching it after that. Having more showtimes does not somehow increase the number of people who watch the movie. It reduces the multiplier and lifetime of the movie. If 100 people are planning to watch Ragnarok and 140 are planning to watch JL, that number would remain constant, regardless of number of shows playing in a day.

Thor. Wonder woman can't save that shambolic movie

I don't think Ragnarok is going to set the box office alight to be honest, by comparison:

• Thor is the inhabitant of probably the worst performing and received solo-movies of the Avengers under 2 different directors, so the surprise now would be that Thor actually comes out with a good movie.
• The DCEU has had a rough start critically, there is no denying that, neither is it that regardless of that, it has a healthy box office. Also it is right now coming off from one of the biggest success stories in modern movie history. Not to mention no one at WB or DC are deaf to the criticism it's come under, and it actually shows in the trailer... (hopefully it also shows in the movie).
• Marvel is still selling their movies using lots of colorful lights, well known tunes and the general feel of fun adventures they sort of pioneered with GotG and repeated with GotG2... which has been overtaken at the BO by the much less 'fun-looking' and much more 'epic' Wonder Woman. So either the Marvel charm is simply wearing off, or people will still go and see things that feel epic and important. And WB is certainly selling Justice League on it's epic feel and importance rather than funzo.
• Plus the JL movie has the ace up it's sleeve in the guise of this being the first Justice League movie and it's the first big screen movie with both the Flash and Aquaman, which is something different than the tried and true Marvel movies. With Marvel, you sort of know what you are getting, with DC it's not set as of yet.

So, as far as I can see, DC has the more risky hand due to past efforts, but also the one with the most potential.
What will be a deciding factor in the long run however is whenever or not the movies are any good which will ensure they keep bringing in the money after the initial release.

JL probably wins domestic while Thor wins at overseas which, because of the way profits are divided between the studio & distributors/theatre chains, would mean a "win" for JL from the producer's viewpoint.

JL will barely make a billion, Thor will top out at around 650 mil

@stormdriven: nah 650 is too low i see it touching 800, whereas JL can go as high as 1.2