The Failed Launch of <em>The Mummy</em> and the Danger of Franchising Too Soon
Hollywood’s dispiriting trend of using multi-film sagas to attract audiences reaches hubristic heights with Universal’s “Dark Universe.”
The box office success story of last weekend was . Patty Jenkins’s well-received take on the superhero, the first DC Comics movie in Warner Bros.’ extended franchise to get good reviews, made $58.5 million to climb to a total of $206 million in nine days. After years of bad buzz for her fellow superheroes Superman and Batman, is clearly the benefit of strong word of mouth: The movie made only 43 percent less than it did on opening weekend, an incredibly small decline for a blockbuster of that, for example, dropped 70 percent over the same period.
