They’re two of the most successful movies of the year, grossing a combined $1.5 billion at the global box office.

“Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “Suicide Squad” are also two of the year’s biggest disappointments, met with viciously negative reviews, bitter fans’ complaints and large second-weekend sales drops that indicate word-of-mouth was unkind, to say the least. The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Morgenstern wrote that “Suicide Squad” represented “an all-out attack on the whole idea of entertainment” due to its “exceptional...