Wonder Woman’s take at the box office seems rather up in the air

Depending on who you ask, Wonder Woman could be making over $100 million in her solo debut, but why do these perceptions matter?

No matter how cool a film may be, studios want to see their investments returned in the form of money. After all, if a movie makes a lot of money, then the perception is (generally) one of success, adding another positive layer to a brand. There are exceptions. The films of the DC Extended Universe come to mind. Would you believe me if I told you that Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice made over $800 million worldwide last year? No, you probably remember how it critically failed to impress instead.

So that’s what Wonder Woman has to deal with: making a lot of money, and perhaps more importantly, not making everyone hate the movie. We won’t know how the latter will shake out until we get closer to the release. However, it seems like there isn’t a consensus right now on how much Wonder Woman will make. That could be an issue.

CBR cites several different reports, but here’s the basic rundown, including an additional report from Box Office Pro:

• TheWrap says one “outlying service” calls for a $105 million debut.
• Deadline instead uses the consensus, which is that $65 million will be Wonder Woman‘s floor and that that could go up to $75 million as early as next week in terms of tracking.
• Box Office Pro’s most recent long-range has Wonder Woman at $83 million.

So why all the differences here? It could be as simple as differences in methodology. However, it could be that since Warner Bros. is finally stepping up its promotions for the movie (including ads in Times Square), that more people are recalling “Hey, Wonder Woman is out soon! I should go see it!” Or, in other words, there’s finally more awareness for this movie.

TheWrap reports that as long as Wonder Woman does better than Ant-Man or Doctor Strange from the Marvel side, Warner Bros. will be happy. CBR echoes the same point. But Wonder Woman isn’t a lesser-known property like those two. She’s part of DC’s trinity of its best-known heroes. Granted, these lower expectations for the big screen might help rather than hurt. However, it seems a little weird for Warner Bros. to want this to perform at the level of movies released in later stages of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

After all, Wonder Woman is the fourth DC Extended Universe movie. Let’s take a moment to compare. Ant-Man is the twelfth MCU movie. Doctor Strange is the fourteenth. Marvel had a lot more momentum going at those points than Warner Bros. seems to have now.

Next: On family in superhero movies

Right now, it appears to be a game of managing expectations, because no one seems quite sure.