With a professional score still sitting at 83% and a fan score of 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, all eyes now turn to the weekend box office numbers for Superman. A week out, there was talk of a $115 million to $130 million global debut. Then, on the back of the positive review scores, some predictions went as high as $200 million worldwide. Superman has now breezed past that, too.
An opening weekend launch of $123 million domestically and an overall total of $217 million worldwide mean that there will be happy people at DC Studios and Warner Bros. this morning.
However, one potential fly in the ointment is the relatively soft overseas numbers compared to the domestic momentum. Will this herald a big second week drop or a lack of legs? Superman is only the third Hollywood movie this year to open to over $100 million, alongside family juggernauts Lilo & Stitch and The Minecraft Movie.
The post-COVID cinema landscape remains in the shadow of PVOD, short exhibition windows, and an audience who were conditioned to stay at home in greater numbers.
The biggest movie of the year, by some distance, is not from the US at all, but China. Ne Zha 2 looks unassailable at the top of the charts for 2025.
Elsewhere at the box office, dinosaurs continued to prove a draw and guarantee more instalments in the franchise, as Jurassic World: Rebirth added another $40 million to be closing in on $530 million worldwide.
F1 will eventually be arriving on Apple TV+, but that didn’t stop it from snaring another $13 million, with a strong global total of $393 million and climbing.
Family hit How To Train Your Dragon pulled in $7.8 million to take the global total to $560 million. Disney Pixar’s Elio struggled in fifth with $3.9 million to take the total to just $117 million worldwide.
The focus of the next two weeks will now be on The Fantastic Four: First Steps in theaters, and Happy Gilmore 2 on streaming. The latest Marvel effort will have to pull in good numbers, or all the talk will be of a momentum shift to DC after Superman.
