Zack Snyder’s Justice League Is Winning An Important Battle
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Zack Snyder’s Justice League remains the most popular home release of the last six months, the NPD Group reports. John Latchem of Media Play News dropped the deets on Thursday. Zack Snyder’s four-hour comic book epic ranked first domestically on the week of the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, a truly apt coincidence given the film’s masterful take on the glaring horrors of home invasion, the savagery of war, unity in times of hardship, and overwhelming hope against all odds.
NPD’s VideoScan First Alert and dedicated Blu-ray Disc Sales charts track the most watched DVD and Blu-ray movies weekly. Fellow Warner Bros. entry The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It was the top bestseller until September 12. It now sits at number two after the visual Goliath that is Zack Snyder’s Justice League.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League is often maligned for its ridiculous runtime, with most hardened cinephiles criticizing the film for not adapting to theater convention. As accomplished as Snyder is at visual storytelling, the sheer audacity of making a movie that doesn’t follow industry standards is widely considered an outrageous take — and they’re right. The four-hour Snyder cut is hardly playable in moviehouses because of its extended runtime, and yet it was never made for theaters in the first place.
Most critics are forgetting Zack Snyder created what basically amounted to a miniseries for exclusive viewing at home. In which case it comes as no surprise Zack Snyder’s Justice League is performing magnificently on home release charts. If the movie’s streaming figures are any indication, it was meant to decimate DVD and Blu-ray tallies from the start.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League didn’t just outsell The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It; it overtook the competition by a staggering 5-to-1 margin. It wasn’t a victory; it was a theatrical massacre. The same odds would have forced competing businesses to close shop, had this occurred outside of Hollywood.
This may seem ludicrous to traditional audiences, but Snyderverse stalwarts could see this coming from miles away. Never underestimate the sort of loyalist zeal niche fandoms have for the directors and IPs they’ve sworn allegiance to. In the age of social networking, that energy is magnified a thousand times over in pursuit of cinematic justice. Zack Snyder’s Justice League never quite received the love and adoration it keenly deserves, yet external victories — such as a massive win on the home release charts — more than make up for it.
Despite already streaming worldwide on HBO Max, Zack Snyder’s Justice League prioritized its home media debut by circulating less than a month after release. The United Kingdom enjoyed early distribution, with the United States receiving its physical copies a little over four months later on September 7. 75% of the movie’s first-week unit sales is all Blu-ray, 38% of which is in 4K Ultra HD format. No surprise; if you’re going to relive possibly DC’s finest moment, then why not crank up the resolution to the highest possible setting? The remaining 37% — a close second — is regular Blu-ray, while 25% of overall disc sales accounts for DVD releases.
Warner Bros. followed that up with a Zack Snyder’s Justice League Trilogy box set, which currently sits at number 14 on the Blu-ray Disc chart. It comes in regular and 4K Ultra HD formats, and includes Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Ultimate Edition, and the four-hour Snyder cut.
Now, the studio may come off as shamelessly Janus-faced, but its business strategy remains intact. Producers are losing heavyweights anyway; why not milk the craze a little more and enjoy it while it lasts? Still, so much for hating Zack Snyder. The studio may act completely blasé, swearing off every single movie developed, but even executives can’t deny the tremendous pull and influence Snyder has over comic book fans and big-time filmmakers. In the end, the proponents of Zack Snyder’s Justice League get the last laugh.
