Wonder Woman was a critical and commercial hit last year as was The Dark Knight Trilogy several years before but Warner Bros. otherwise hasn't had much luck with the DC Films Universe in recent years. Why? Well, market research tech provider "ZappiStore" has conducted a study and come to the conclusion that Marvel movies resonate better with moviegoers than those set in the DC Universe.
Basically, the company got a group of people to watch trailers for both Marvel and DC Universe movies and used an emotional recognition technology called Affectiva to measure the expressions and emotions they displayed while looking at them. While DC trailers were a hit in terms of special effects and action scenes, the characters didn't have anywhere near the same level of impact. Marvel trailers, on the other hand, were quite a bit more well-received when it came to characters and humour.
As a result, those generated a stronger level of emotional engagement and that's what helps Marvel.
"We were surprised to see, across all trailers tested, that the emotional response was lower than expected for set pieces and special effects, particularly in the genre we were looking at," research architect Ernie Collings said. "The results indicate the way DC can reboot and change characters across trilogies or between TV to film might be having a detrimental effect on how well the public connects with those characters." The question is, should we put much stock in these findings?
Honestly, it's hard to say but there's no getting around the fact that Marvel does seem to find more success than DC on the big screen and that's something Warner Bros. hopes to change moving forward.
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