The movie was terribly miscast also. You had negative reception of Ben Affleck's inclusion from day one of the announcement(granted he became one of the only positives of the movie later on), whilst the actor that played Lex Luthor was bad in general. I love movies and even I was looking at my watch after 2 hours thinking "surely this must end soon". Doesn't help that there was nothing really exciting about the movie and some of the concepts were laughable such as the "you are letting them kill martha" reasoning for Batman sparing Superman and Doomsday's boring sequence. They did get a few elements right though, the batmobile looked awesome(way better than the Tumbler), Batman's modulated voice was great and different from the usual porn-star voice but these are few compared to the obvious flaws.

$900 million box office is impressive in the general scheme of things ie. not many movies come near that. But in terms of the ROI(return on investment), the movie itself did poorly. $400 million in reported production and marketing budget combined, only for the studio itself to make back about $450 million(theatres get half the gross). So the studio invested all the time, money and effort into a massive project, only to make $50 million profit whilst Deadpool was a $60 million production(throw on another $60 million and marketing) and made almost $800 million gross world wide(close to $400 million for the studio), equating to about a 300 million dollar profit on a $120 million investment. Batman V Superman is a failure for the studio. It might not be considered a "commercial failure" in the public's eyes but I definitely don't see WB being happy with only making $50 million profit on a $400 million investment.

That's a good point. I will agree that I don't believe WB is happy, which is why I think the rumors of them bringing in big name producers for JL  (instead of just giving Snyder the ax) is, in their eyes, the best way to move forward. I do think they were expecting an easy billion from this and reality has hit them.

doesn't matter how many films led up to it.  It matters that Superman AND Batman are more well established in the cinematic realm than any of the Avengers were.  Batman is a billion dollar franchise when directed by Chris Nolan by HIMSELF.  Then you throw in Wonder Woman and you should get Avengers money.  The first crossover in a continuity should make a billion minimum as Avengers established with lesser known characters.  That's poor structuring that they had their Avengers and blew their load before they had established anyone. 

It's like if Avengers had been the second MCU 2 1/2 years after Iron Man and he had fought Cap who was just being introduced then they threw in Ms Marvel and had Iron Man die at the end.  Oh and Cap got a vision from Vision about Thanos invading and watched youtube videos of Thor, Black Panther, and the Hulk.

The worst part for DC is that they won't get that initial crossover money from Justice League now.  We've seen the trinity together so they can't use that as a big selling point and they'll throw in their lesser characters as a reason to get excited.  Sure I like Flash on TV but it's more of an Age of Ultron adding a couple guys effect rather than a "OH MY GOD THEY'RE ALL TOGETHER!" kinda effect like with Avengers.  They've also ruined the Superman character by killing him off and having him act really weird in public.  Like no one even liked him when he died and Batman and Wonder Woman were at the funeral...why?  They didn't know him at all and one of them had been trying to kill him until 10 minutes before his death.

Bottom line is quality is king and even the worst of the MCU is entertaining.  I wouldn't rate any of their movies below a 6/10.  I would put MoS at 6/10 and BvS at 4/10 and critics pretty much agree that this is a bad start.  HOWEVER suicide Squad has an awesome director and some serious talent that seems to fit the roles perfectly.  I won't be a fanboy and act like I'm sold on the little bit they've shown us and Joker looks mighty questionable (never been a Jared Leto fan) but Harley and Deadshot look dead on.  I'll be there opening night just like I was for BvS so here's hoping I don't walk out with that same sense of disappointment.

not for these franchises.  Batman can be a billion on his own as the super recent Nolan films proved.  He was in great hands.  You throw in Superman and Wonder Woman and this thing should have been sky high.  Being a shit movie is the only thing that could've kept it under a billion (even DC themed podcasts were saying this last year that if it didn't hit a billion that probably meant it was bad) and it's under a billion.  It's official, Iron Man by himself is bigger than the whole DC trinity in cinema.

I do think they were expecting to crack the billion dollar barrier fairly easily but sadly that didn't happen. Hopefully they learn in moving forward and control their budgets more tightly and have a more focused story. I really don't think the movie had to set up for Justice League that extensively as it did, too much time was devoted to that and the main story became dilued(in my opinion). Justice League, if done properly will sell on its own merits and brand name. Sadly I think the studio forced the director/writers to implement the Justice League angle into the movie which is something studios have done in the past because they provide the dollars. It's like with Alien 3 and Fox Studios micromanaging every element of the script and production because ultimately, they are funding the whole movie. Even heavy weight directors like Ridley Scott have seen studio interference overcome their own intentions(Blade Runner was re-cut with narrative voice over against Ridley's wishes etc). Once in a while you get a guy like Quentin Tarintino who pretty much calls the shots but he writes his own movies, shoots relatively fast, keeps a tight budget and has a good partnership with the Weinstein brothers.

I totally agee. The movie should have broken the billion barrier with ease, but did not.

I'm simply submitting that the brand is good enough to produce that by itself.  When you look at Marvel Phase 1 only Iron Man even made a half billion yet the Avengers made 1.5 BILLION!  So crossing over should have produced a MUCH higher mulitplier.  and yet it went DOWN from previous films.  I mean the Dark Knight Rises wasn't great but even it made a billion.

I do agree that the main problem was shoving too much in.  Batman and Superman meeting is a movie on its own.  And it had to happen AFTER you had estabslihed Batman and Superman in the same continuity.  They not only tried to introduce the new Batman while making him hate Superman but they ALSO made Superman die, doomsday come and go, introduce Lex, oh yeah and let's introduce Wonder Woman and blow the wad on her before her solo movie.

It's not just that this movie wasn't good.  It has ruined SO much stuff for the future of the DCEU.  You can't have an awesome Death of Superman story now (should have happened in Justice League Part 2).  Like nobody cared about it because he either hasn't met them or they just fought for 5 minutes with him or were trying to kill him.  It's supposed to be a big deal because he never loses and he has been the leader of the JLA and fought with them for so long.  Now you can't have that because if you kill him again or have Doomsday again it'll be redundant.

They should have introduced Batman first.  Then have MoS.  Then have Wonder just teased at the party in BvS.  DO NOT spoil her action and all her powers in the doomsday fight!  You could also have her 1918 movie before this but again they probably skipped this because they wanted to avoid being like Marvel at the cost of their own storytelling (because it would be called a Captain America look alike).  Also don't have the doomsday fight!  No doomsday and death in the same movie where they meet because it makes no god damn sense.  I would have them save Martha (and not have her name be the resolution of the fight) with a weakened Superman and then they both go pay a visit to Lex and part ways afterwards as Bruce goes back to Metropolis.  After credits maybe have a Wonder Woman tease or if you've done her solo movie already have another tease.  If you don't want to copy Marvel (others have had credits scenes not just Marvel) just have it at the end of the movie so that youtube clips don't interrupt the movie at hand.

Does that scenario not sound like a more coherent structure for a cinematic universe?  Like why did they look at the MCU and say "that is really successful and pleases almost all the fans.  Let's make sure to not ever be anything like that."  They got scared out of a good structure that had JUST worked.

They should have gotten you to write the script, honestly :)

Doomsday going up against Superman should have been it's own movie, much like the Death of Superman comic saga. Such lost potential.

People forget that both Superman Returns and Batman Begins did not gross much. And for however much people like the MCU, only 3 movies grossed more.