Unless something really incredible happens, there is little doubt Avengers: Age of Ultron (I’ll refer to it as AoU from here on out to save on typing) will be one of the biggest, if not THE biggest box office draw of the year.  Anticipation for the film is sky high and, while it hasn’t yet been released in the U.S., it was already released in Europe and has so far amassed an incredible amount of money.

But the backlash, it would seem, has begun.

In the world of art, be it literature or paintings or music or film, there is a most curious phenomena regarding the talent behind the product.  As a collective, audiences tend to build up their artistic “heroes”, be they actors/writers/singers/etc. and place them on a very high pedestal only to, inevitably, knock them back down.  Sometimes they’re knocked down so hard they never reach their glorious heights again.

In part this is only natural.  To use a baseball analogy, you can’t and won’t hit a home run every time you come up to the plate.

For AoU,  the high anticipation of this release was somewhat shattered this past week when it reached foreign markets and a vocal segment of those who got to see the film reacted negatively to it.  They felt the work was underwelming…or worse.

Over at AoU’s IMDB.com page, there is a whole commentary devoted to the back and forth between those who feel the film was a disappointment and those who argue it wasn’t.  You can read those comments here.

It’s worth noting, too, the Rottentomatoes.com score for the film has moved downwards, going from a very positive 84% among critics a couple of days ago down to a less impressive (yet still highly positive) 78% (you can read about that here), and this is before the film has formally reached our shores.

There is one other thing that makes some would be fans squeamish: It has already been reported that AoU’s BluRay release will include a longer cut of the film along with an alternate ending.  (For more detailed information, click here)

Further, director/writer Joss Whedon stated in interviews that the original cut of the film was in the area of three and a half hours long, with the final theatrical cut coming in at two hours and eleven minutes.  That’s a lot to cut and, naturally, people wondered if making the film more theatrically friendly might have resulted in a less coherent overall work.

In many ways this situation reminds me of what happened prior to the release of John Carter back in 2012.  The early word quite literally destroyed that movie’s box office well before it was actually released.  People felt the film was a bomb and stayed as far away from it as possible.

I highly doubt the same will happen with AoU, but it is undeniable a vocal public element has emerged at the very least cautioning people to lower their expectations regarding this film.  Will this affect its box office in any noticeable way?

We’ll see soon enough.