Justice League Box Office Helped Time Warner Hit Q4 Goals

Time Warner still manages to beat its Q4 estimates despite Justice League underperforming at the global box office. It’s no secret that Zack Snyder’s Justice League – starring the world’s finest heroes: Batman (Ben Affleck), Superman (Henry Cavill), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), The Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) – suffered greatly during production. Snyder exited the project during post-production due to understandably deal with a personal tragedy. And so, Joss Whedon stepped in to helm Justice League‘s reshoots.


Unfortunately, the reshoots didn’t help the film’s chances at scoring big – critically or commercially. Despite being one of the most anticipated superhero films ever released, Justice League couldn’t translate all that anticipation into box office receipts. The DC team-up movie grossed $228 million at the domestic box office, with an additional $427.9 million coming from overseas markets, thus bringing its worldwide total to $656 million. That makes Justice League the lowest-grossing DCEU film to date. And while it certainly could’ve been better, it did still help Time Warner’s bottom line.


Time Warner reported total revenue growth of $8.6 billion for Q4 2017, a 9 percent increase compared to the same quarter the year prior. The company beat Wall Street estimates by $180 million, and part of that growth in the fourth quarter was boosted by the global box office performance of Justice League, which hit screens worldwide in November.


Time Warner is a mass media company and an entertainment conglomerate that maintains divisions across various forms of media, not just films. In addition to various revenue streams, an increase in HBO subscriptions significantly helped Time Warner’s bottom line throughout 2017. But, Warner Bros. Pictures’ performance will always be a major factor in the company’s success. And despite Justice League‘s lackluster performance, there’s no denying that Warner Bros. had quite a successful year at both the domestic and worldwide box office.


Thanks to the overwhelming critical and commercial success of films such as Andrés Muschietti’s IT (the highest-grossing R-rated horror movie ever) and Patty Jenkins Wonder Woman (the fifth highest-grossing superhero film domestically), Warner Bros. passed the $5 billion globally for the first time. That’s in spite of disappointing box office performances from films such as Snyder’s Justice League and Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. So, while DCEU fans may have wanted Warner Bros. to see the error in their ways – which they have and are currently restructuring DC Films in response – they still turned a profit.