Less than two weeks after its premiere on YouTube, the official trailer for The CW’s Batwoman TV series has acquired a tremendous amount of dislikes. As of this writing, the trailer carries over 335,000 dislikes compared to just 72,000 likes with 4.6 million overall views. Over 88,000 comments and counting are accumulating on the video as well, and the vast majority of them are extremely negative.
“God these try not to cringe challenges are getting unreal,” reads the top comment. Other comments criticize various aspects of the trailer, with a focus particularly on Batwoman’s one-liner about not letting a man take credit for a woman’s work - which she utters after breaking intoBatman’s secret lairand taking his suit, tech, and identity. If first impressions are everything, this is not a good sign moving forward.
This is certainly not new territory for people on YouTube. It’s easy to be reminded of the debacle that was the release of theGhostbustersreboot trailer in 2016. Fans reacted very negatively to the trailer, giving it over a million dislikes and making it among the lowest-rated videos on YouTube. Additionally, people were spamming the movie’s IMDb page with low ratings before the movie was even released or seen by anyone. Most likely, this backlash played a big part in the movie’s underwhelming performance at the box office, as the vitriol was impossible to avoid.
Conversely, this kind of internet hatred does not exactly guarantee a project’s failure.Captain Marvelfamously endured plenty of online spite and public boycotting prior to its release, mostly in relation to the perceived feminism of lead actress Brie Larson. While many of the movie’s haters were predicting the movie would flop, exactly the opposite happened instead, asCaptain Marvelbanked over a billion dollars at the box office. Despite the number of protesters refusing to see the movie under any circumstances, it still wound up becoming one of the most successful movies of all time.
WithRuby Rosein the titular role,Batwomanwill be a part of The CW’s ArrowVerse. In the trailer, it isestablished Batman is presently missingin action in Gotham City, leading to Kate Kane (Rose) taking over as the new savior of the city by picking up where the Dark Knight left off. Joining Rose in the cast will be Rachel Skarsten, Meagan Tandy, Camrus Johnson, Dougray Scott, Elizabeth Anweis, and Nicole Kang.Game of Thronesdirector David Nutter helmed the pilot using a screenplay fromThe Vampire Diarieswriter Caroline Dries. Greg Berlanti is executive producing.
It remains to be seen how much the trailer backlash will affect viewership whenBatwomanpremieres on The CW this fall. Hopefully, for the sake of those involved in the show’s production, the series will be more successful than what these YouTube commenters are predicting. To read some of the harsh comments about the series for yourself, you can head check out The CW Network on YouTube.
