So, story time. It was Comic Con 2013 and it was right after the release of Man of Steel, which was viewed as the start of a new cinematic universe for DC. However, Man of Steel was more frontloaded than originally anticipated. Despite a massive opening weekend, Man of Steel detoriated fast domestically and didn't end up managing to reach the total of the previous year's superhero reboot: The Amazing Spider-Man. However, the film was largely profitable due to a large amount of promotions and product placement that pretty much paid off its entire marketing budget and then some. Warner Bros. had no reason to be upset with the results. Still, their Batman franchise had managed to make over a billion dollars the last two entries and that was without the benefit of 3D. Perhaps if Batman was with Superman, and the world got the team-up they've been dreaming of forever, DC could enjoy massive success and truly spin-off into a massive, sprawling cinematic universe. The new Batman v. Superman film was fasttracked to July 17, 2015.
However, the potential to just jump right into
Justice League and finish catching up to
Marvel (who would have already had two crossover films by that point) was too much of a temptation. Studio mandate after studio mandate to build the universe in this one film was pressed on and the film wasn't heading in a direction that would be respected. Kudos to
Warner Bros., then, for deciding to pass up a prime date in July in order to ensure that the creative team had more time to develop a movie that would meet the guidelines they wanted and would make for an entertaining film. (Yeah, we're all looking at you
Sony.) However,
Warner Bros. executives decided to try to bully
Marvel Studios out of yet another prime summer release date instead. They placed the new film on May 6, 2016.
Following the release of
Captain America: The Winter Soldier,
Marvel announced that the date in which they'd scored for May 6, 2016 was really a threequel to their own patriotic superhero. Even with what many would assume to be a disadvantage, with a date of April 4, 2014,
Captain America: The Winter Soldier managed to make $713,639,890 which is more than
The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which had locked the first weekend of May release date, and almost as much as
Man of Steel, which was received very similarly to
The Amazing Spider-Man 2. This proved that you could release a superhero film at any time of the year and have it be a hit. This had to have
Warner Bros. thinking that maybe they don't
need the first weekend of May release date. They just need the weekend to themselves.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier also managed to double its predecessor's total in the worldwide box office, partially due to the word of mouth and partially due to its boost from
The Avengers. Who is to say that it wouldn't happen again following the release of
Avengers: Age of Ultron? It would be coming right off of the film and we all know how that ended for
Iron Man 3 (KA CHING!). Even if
Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice made more than
Captain America 3 (which, let's be honest, would be really likely), would
Warner Bros. be willing to stake not only the potential the film has to crack $1 billion, but also the rest of the cinematic universe on it being able to beat that film and still turn a profit?
In the end,
DC fans (and CBM fans) get to see
Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice sooner and
Warner Bros. can maximize its profit. It doesn't need a prime release date because the whole year is open season now. All you need is a great movie, a good marketing campaign and the ability to get people excited for the film. We already know that they have a pretty good handle on the latter two (hopefully the former one is no problem) so why wouldn't they pull it forward and give fans what they want. They maximize their profits and everyone is happier for it.
DC didn't lose anymore than
Marvel won. They both are the winners. And we are all the winners of this deal.