Marvel Universe and DC must be given the credit they deserve as a result of their superhero films frequently dominating the box office. They have consistently produced superhero movies and attracted viewers to the theaters by building a cinematic world. Avengers: Endgame, Marvel’s most excellent superhero film to date, was released in 2019 and is arguably the most ambitious endeavor ever. DC is home to some of the most iconic superheroes. Produced in 2017, Justice League draws from several heroes of the DC superhero franchise. The movie came as a sequel to the famous film Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice and received critical ratings as it failed to live up to the expectations following the massive success of the previous film. Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame owes its enormous success to the actors’ flawless performances and good reputation, the film’s inclusion of multiculturalism, and an excellent marketing strategy. While the movie Justice League fell short of the audience’s expectations due to its boring storyline, poor CGI, and the actors’ controversies, earning it the title “one of the biggest cinematic flops.”
The two films targeted the young and adults because the companies have been having fans of different ages over time. While the comic scenes are mainly intended to be watched by the young, Justice League targeted people of all ages while trying to build on the existing fan base. Avengers: Endgame’s target audience is mainly youth and young adults with a strong social media presence. With a PG rating of 12 years, the film has some violent sections where parents might need to exercise caution. Their promotion is mainly directed towards the large following on online platforms to appeal to existing and new fans.
Avengers: Endgame Budget/Profit Breakdown
Avengers: Endgame narrowly ranked second to Avatar as the highest-grossing film of all time, earning it the title “the world’s favorite superhero movie of all time.” According to records provided by Box Office Mojo, the production of Avengers: Endgame had an initial budget of $356 million, which mainly covered production expenditures, actor compensation, and advertising expenses. The film is considered the most commercially successful movie of all time. It gained nearly two billion internationally in addition to its $800 million in domestic profits, bringing in a total of $2.8 billion, approximately eight times its initial budget.
Avengers: Endgame Actors’ Performances
The cast members’ reputation and exceptional acting skills were one of the primary factors contributing to the success of Avengers: Endgame. Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Evans as Captain America, Mark Ruffalo as Hulk, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, and many others make together one of the strongest acting ensembles of 2019. These actors’ amazing acting expertise was showcased by their inclusion in Forbes’ Celebrity 100: The World’s Highest-earning Entertainers of 2019, where Chris Hemsworth appeared 24th with earnings of $76.4 million and Paul Rudd ranked 83rd with $41 million, followed by Scarlett Johansson, Robert Downey Jr. Bradley Cooper, and Chris Evans. The popularity of the actors is also very advantageous because having famous movie stars play roles appeals to the audiences.
The actors were exceptional in their performance because they comprehended several skill sets needed for success in a film. Acting requires creative individuals who can fit in the roles created by the directors and over-exceed the expectations of the castors and the viewers. The assemblage of the film characters can be regarded as experienced and from multiple franchises that can execute different scenes easily. In the movie, they appear to effectively execute their roles by taking the world-ending threat seriously as they enjoy the action and moments of their lives. The actors are known to effectively mix seriousness and comedy or funny to clearly illustrate their actions while obtaining maximum pleasure from the activity.
Avengers: Endgame Actors’ good reputation
The Avengers: Endgame actors have a good reputation within and outside their working carrier. Robert Downey Jr has a good reputation outside the acting due to his involvement in activities that give back to the vulnerable community. His philanthropic work renders him one of the extremely charitable actors who do not often publicize their actions. He has continuously donated to organizations, including Orca Network and Clothes Off Your Back. He is recognized as one of the well-wishes who made the Make a Wish Event successful in Singapore. Another element that has been Robert reputable is his ability to utilize technology for good. He launched the Footprint Coalition, a strategy that promotes the restoration of nature to maintain a clean environment. He intends to use nanotechnology to ensure pollutants can be collected and recycled to make products like alcohol. The Footprint coalition approach is created in a manner that enables the reduction of global warming impacts via technology and mobilization of individuals and organizations through social media.
Scarlett Johansson has been involved in charity work as she has served as an Oxfam Ambassador for eight years, from 2007. He recorded a video journal after she visited Kenya to represent the organization. She made a great record by skipping the Oscars to attend Oxfam duties in India and Sri Lanka as part of Oxfam. The organization fights injustice created by poverty by establishing lasting solutions to bring changes and secure a future that is secure from impoverishment. Johansson was one of the celebrities who helped victims of Hurricane Katrina by supplying food to those left homeless after the incident. She believes participating in charity is rewarding because it helps the most unfortunate in society. Her involvement in Oxfarm helps bring awareness of the organization’s needs and objectives, hence mobilizing others to contribute funds and other materials to assist the organization in dealing with poverty. Chris Hemsworth has been passionate about supporting organizations such as the Australian Childhood Foundation. The organization has a vision of ensuring children are protected from trauma, abuse, neglect, or violence. The Association of these actors with charitable works and other impactful activities has made them reputable; hence, people are likely to watch movies more than Justice League.
Avengers: Endgame Inclusion of Multiculturalism/Diversity
The director of Avengers: Endgame attracted new fans due to its diversity. Incorporating more diversity results in greater excitement among colored viewers. Black Panther is the logical choice as the inclusion of Black Panther among the superheroes in Avengers attracted that kind of audience. A large portion of the audience who enjoyed Black Panther also saw Avengers: Endgame, which they would not have seen if it had not been for Black Panther. “Wakanda Forever!” is cheered and chanted by the audience as T’Challa enters the portal of almost all of his soldiers in Avengers: Endgame, demonstrating Black Panther’s significant influence on the Marvel Cinematic Universe and how it attracted new viewers to the epic story. Audiences play a role in movie sales; their satisfaction with the film’s production and inclusion of multiculturalism/diversity led to more interest in the film.
The power of learning how to sell through creative diversity is evident in Avengers: Endgame. The film is a reflection of a wider cultural shift in an industry that has previously been dominated by a lack of inclusion and related creativity. If one looks back at when Avengers characterized were first creative in the film industry, especially between the 1930s and 1940s, it is clear that most or all were white guys. It can also be assumed that the writers were all white as well. However, there is a shifting narrative under the directors’ and actors’ leadership and creativity. The studio and the director have realized that fans are diverse; hence, the content must represent such diversity. Black Panther was recognized as the first superhero film nominated for the best picture Oscar award. The film is not extremely diverse regarding the racial identity of the characters. It includes an openly gay character that has attracted the LGBTQ + communities. There are efforts to tackle the lack of diversity in Holywood, as demonstrated by the film, while still earning profits. The movie shows that the audience is ready to consume stories representative of our society’s diversity.
Avengers: Endgame Great Marketing Strategies
The marketing strategy pursued by Avenger: Endgame was epic in several ways. The trailer depicted hugely interesting action set pieces with new and unexpected actors. Having a trailer showing the first 20 minutes makes it represent less about the film, which alludes to the view that less is more. Showing less allows the viewers to stay eager to view more, leading to high ticket numbers to satisfy curiosity. Another marketing strategy is through social media, especially on Instagram, where marvel has over 32 million followers. There was also the #AvengersEndgame hashtag utilized on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Several representations of poster designs were posted on social media platforms to engage fans and boast the actors’ prowess in the film. The marketing strategy was a communal effort for all, including the Ruso brothers, whose population social media feeds with pictures and behind the scene images related to the film. Actors with a high social media following, such as Rober Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth, and Karen Gillan, also promoted the film. The marketing budget for the film was approximately $200 million, which enabled them to partner with great brands such as coca-cola, google, and Ziploc to promote the film. All these strategies were crucial in reaching different audiences worldwide, contributing to the film’s success.
Justice League’s Budget/Profit
While Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame had immense success at the box office, DC’s Justice League performed dismally. It was deemed “one of the biggest cinematic flops” as it brought the crew financial disappointments during its opening weekend. Given that it was a large-scale production with a $300 million budget plus an additional $150 million for advertising, the movie failed to live up to the expectations of its production team and audience. Justice League requires at least twice as much revenue to cover its costs and break even on such a large-scale production. However, according to the data from Box Office Mojo, the movie only made $229 million domestically, in addition to $430 million worldwide, for a little over $600 million in revenue. Given that both films had the same production budget of over $300 million, Justice League’s total revenue was nowhere close to that of Avengers: Endgame, which resulted in the film falling short of its break-even mark and causing Warner Bros. Studio to suffer a financial loss.
Justice League’s Boring Storyline
In an attempt to be unique, the film uses grimness in the place of humour. Grimness elicits emotions of resignation, leading to boredom. Apart from some comic relief and excellent action sequences, the film is largely boring, unoriginal, and dreary. The villain in the story is lame, as played by Steppenwolf. Purported with a role as a destroyer of worlds, he never serves an intriguing twist but goes ahead to act destroying worlds without any creativity. Ezra Miller mainly displays comedy or humor, but they were very few, making the film seem grim for no reason.
Justice’s League Actors’ Poor Performances
Another issue that affected Justice League’s success was the Actors’ Poor Performances. The portrayal of the actors seemed inappropriate, and considering the movie had a short duration of less than 2 hours; viewers could not see any good relationship between the actors. Justice League brought disappointments to the big screen where some critics claim it was a showcase of some of the worst acting and dreadful performances, which left its audience with unfulfilled expectations. Opting to replace the previous work written by Snyder to rewrite the movie by using Joss Whedon, there had to be a disconnect between the original tone, plot, and intention of the film. “The heroes with no chemistry between them, joyless acting, and the humor feel forced,” a critic once said. Introducing many new villains and heroes did not augur well with the audience. The film fell short of the audience’s expectations due to its unimpressive acting and poor production.
Justice’s League Poor CGI
The film Justice League had Poor Computer-Generated Image (CGI), which negatively impacted its success. The utilization of CGI in designing movie graphics requires close attention to lighting and other details to elucidate a good appearance to the viewer. However, in Justice League, the designers did not meet the audience’s expectations. The poor CGI results in a very poorly rendered image of Henry Cavill’s CGI mouth being visible as it was recorded at the timestamp of 1 hour 41 minutes and 40 seconds. CGI plays a big role in all fictional films since it is frequently used to generate special effects in movies. Unfortunately, Justice League’s CGI was rushed and incomplete, which gave the impression that the movie was not well constructed given its high budget. It is supposed that the poor CGI was contributed by changes in scheduled reshoots after direct Zack Snyder handed over to Joss Whedon, who had to rewrite different sections of the movie. During this duration, the actors had to prepare for other films such as mission impossible.
Conclusion
The DC Comics and Marvel universe have a plethora of superhero films that their audiences love. In both, superheroes unite to save the world against a villainous adversary. Therefore, one would expect the films to be a huge success. The success of Avengers: Endgame and the failure of Justice League at the box office resulted from several factors, including audience input, production, and casting. While Avengers presented superheroes with human attributes, Justice League stuck to the stock characters. In addition, Avengers enjoyed box office success due to its perceived representation across ethnic and international planes. Directing also played a crucial role- where fans of DC Comics were angered by the removal of Snyder from directing the film. This concludes that film production success is dependent not only on the genre but also on the audience’s perception of important figures in the industry, such as directors, producers, and actors.