First, here's the lackluster new trailer.
Second, will Justice League be a success? Well, it depends on how you measure success. Box office, I would be genuinely surprised if it didn't make a ton of money. I'm sure Warner Bros. has set a too high bar of a billion dollars for the movie which it might not reach. Certainly, it'll get close, probably half a billion at the lowest and over three quarters of a billion at the high-end, but otherwise, it would be a shocker if it actually broke a billion dollars. Still, it will more than pay for itself.
Critical reception, on the other hand, is a completely different matter. Thus so far, only one movie in the DC Extended Universe has had both financial and critical success and that is Wonder Woman. Man of Steel is a distant second and both Batman v. Superman and Suicide Squad don't even get participation trophies. Justice League might get a boost from Wonder Woman, but don't expect it to be much. Man of Steel garnered a 55% and a 55 at Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, respectively, so the best WB can hope for is Justice League getting at least that high. Certainly, it's not getting the 94% and 76 of Wonder Woman, and it would have to be total trash to get the mid-twenty percents and mid-forties of Batman v. Superman and Suicide Squad.
In fact, if this movie somehow scores that low, the effect would be bad for the DCEU. Very bad. I on't think even a hefty box office would be that much of a balm for the cinematic universe's ills. I do know that Warner Bros. is trying to right the ship by putting Geoff Johns and others at the helm and de-emphasizing the interconnectivity of each movie. If Justice League does fail, then I think it will set off a major crisis and WB will kneejerk and maybe do away with the DCEU altogether in favor of a return to the old standalone model. What they should do is disassemble the whole thing and find and fix all of its broken bits, starting with the "grim and gritty" tone that someone decided was a great idea. When I think grim and gritty, I don't think DC Comics or its movies at all.
I think you've hit the nail on the head. Post-Wonder Woman's box office success the trailers and marketing have re-positioned her front and centre, but it can't make up for the fact - even with the increased humour (in the trailers, at least) - this looks like a retread of BvS with a faceless mass of CGI 'parademons' for our heroes to smash. I strongly suspect this will tank critically and its strong opening weekend will drop off dramatically once word-of-mouth gets around!
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