‘Justice League’ opens to less-than-flying start at US box offices

After the massive success of “Wonder Woman” which is among 2017’s top-grossing films, Gal Gadot’s reprise of her iconic superheroine has not seen the same flying start with DC Entertainment’s “Justice League,” which opened this weekend to underwhelming box office numbers.

Marking the lowest domestic opening of the five DC Extended Universe films to date, “Justice League” is struggling to hit $100 million in its North American debut, according to The Hollywood Reporter, having grossed just $38.8 million on Friday.

“Wonder Woman”‘ raked in $103 million during its opening weekend while 2016’s “Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice,” which was the first time Gadot flew onto the screen in her god-forged gear, debuted to $166 million in the US and “Suicide Squad” took in $133.7 million the same year.

The two-hour-long movie sees Wonder Woman and Batman (Ben Affleck) gather other DC comic book metahumans The Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) to create a superhero team to face the apocalyptic threat of Steppenwolf and his army of Parademons.

The slow start has been pinned on both poor reviews and the converse success of Disney and Marvel Studios’ “Thor: Ragnarok,” which opened last weekend to $122.7 million.

But despite the shaky US opening, “Justice League” is fairing better elsewhere, collecting a relatively strong $70.7 million in its first three days for an expected global haul of $300 million-plus through Sunday, The Hollywood Reporter reports.

It opened in Israel on Friday and is showing at all major cinemas across the country.