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DC's 'Brighter' Superman Movie Smashes Box Office Expectations (yahoo.com) 109

Posted by EditorDavid from the up-up-and-away dept.
James Gunn's Superman "appears to be succeeding in rebooting DC Studios and its most iconic comic book franchise," writes The Hollywood Reporter, noting the film is "headed for a possible record domestic box office debut of $115 million to $120 million." Gunn is in a unique position, being both the film's writer-director and the co-head of the Warner Bros.-owned DC, which he co-runs with Peter Safran. Overseas, Superman is launching to $100 million-plus from 78 markets after earning $40 million midweek from its first raft of international markets for an early global total of $96.5 million through Friday. Superman will be the first superhero film to cross $100 million in its North American bow since Marvel Studios and Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool & Wolverine launched to $211 million in summer 2024 ("superhero fatigue" has become part of the Hollywood lexicon). And it's the first DC title to cross $100 million in eight long years since Wonder Woman debuted to $103.3 million in 2017.

And if the $225 million tentpole comes in north of $116.6 million, it will beat Zack Snyder's 2013 film Man of Steel ($116.7 million) to rank as the biggest domestic launch ever for a solo Superman pic, not adjusted for inflation. Snyder's mash-up Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice scored the biggest DC opening of all time when earning $166.6 million over Easter weekend in 2016... Gunn's movie is only the third Hollywood title of 2025 to launch north of $100 million after fellow Warners tentpole A Minecraft Movie, which opened to $162.8 million, and Disney's live-action Lilo & Stitch, which sewed up $146 million in its debut. Crossing the century mark is no small feat for any movie in the post-pandemic era, and particularly for the troubled superhero genre.

The pic should enjoy a long run thanks to strong word-of-mouth. Critics and audiences alike are embracing the film. The pic earned an A- CinemaScore from moviegoers, the same grade given to Man of Steel and ahead of Superman Returns' B+. The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is a stellar 94 percent, while the critics' score is a pleasing 82 percent...

Other upcoming DC Studios projects include HBO's Green Lantern series, Lanterns, and a Supergirl movie due out in 2026.
Superman's weekend debut at nearly $130 million domestically smashes early estimates of around $90 million (according to a senior media analyst at Comscore).

And the film also got a positive reaction from the author of the cultural history Superman: The Unauthorized Biography (writing for NPR): Recent attempts to tell live-action Superman stories have shied away from his bright, hopeful, altruistic nature in favor of making him more cool and relatable (read: dark and brooding). That's not who he is; it never has been. Superman is an ideal. He represents the best we can aspire to be. He's not the hero you relate to, à la Peter Parker/Spider-Man's ongoing struggle to pay his rent and buy Aunt May her damn medicine. He's the hero who inspires you, who shows you the way...

It doesn't have to be about slogging through trauma and shame and shadow-selves and endlessly tedious redemption arcs. Sometimes, it's simpler, cleaner, brighter. And also? Not for nothing? More fun.

DC's 'Brighter' Superman Movie Smashes Box Office Expectations More | Reply

DC's 'Brighter' Superman Movie Smashes Box Office Expectations

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  • Inflation and they're audiences it didn't beatZack Snyder's Man of Steel?
    • I don't know... But it looks like a nice change after 30 years of so many downer movies. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited for "The Batman 2"... but it is nice to have something uplifting sometimes from DC.

      • Re: So adjusting for (Score:4, Insightful)

        by GeekWithAKnife ( 2717871 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @09:17AM (#65517048)
        Uplifting is a job for marvel. I want dark and gritty. Imagine a dystopian universe whereby a criminal kingpin, convicted rapist fraudster becomes president and starts weaponising all the instruments of justice to support his corrupt agenda and only The Batman can do the people of Gotham justice.

        hmmm. maybe too close to home.

        OK OK but like a Brightburn sorta version of superman would be nice instead of all this fluff.

      • Wonder Woman wasn't a bad entry into the positive DC superhero(ine) category. (Well, at least the first 4/5ths of the first movie.) But I agree Snyder's Batman-fan viewpoint on everything DC related severely screwed over Superman.

        (Unpopular view: this isn't bad per-se, it's great to have different visions for how a character should be, but it doesn't mean it always works. Back to more popular view: Superman is hated by many fans of comics for being an OP goodie-two-shoes, and that's fine, but that doesn't m

    • Inflation and they're audiences it didn't beatZack Snyder's Man of Steel?

      It did well domestic business, but stunk it up in China, and the rest of Asia doesn't look too good either. The only foreign market that's really putting in good numbers is Latin America. Since the domestic market is doing better than expected, it'll make money. But with the way Asia is playing out, it won't make the kind of money that Warner Brothers was hoping for.

      Hollywood has been relying on Asia for profitability on multi-million dollar CGI epics for a couple of decades now. They may have to adjust the

  • How many times? (Score:3, Funny)

    by registrations_suck ( 1075251 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @08:41AM (#65517014)

    How many times are they going to re-tell the same Batman and Superman stories?

    It happened THIS way.

    No, it happened THAT way.

    No, it happened THIS OTHER way.

    Make up your fucking minds!

    • No need to 're-invent' a Superman origin story for modern audiences.

      The daily Superman comic strip was in publication from 1939 to 1966. Just pick your favourite arc(s) from the back catalogue and hire some decent writers to flesh out a 90 minute script. Bonus points, set it in the timeframe the original comics were in, a noir period drama.

      c.f. Batman for me was always the hammy 60s TV show - setting him in contemporary times never cut it for me, an Austin Powers style remake is in order.

      • I can't help but think about picking some of the trippier comics, where you would be convinced that the writers and illustrators were on the good drugs.
        Things like Superman having the power to create miniature duplicates, breath hallucigens, that sort of thing.

    • If nothing else, they are re-telling it for each new generation, in the current movie-making style.

      Although such a big box office implies a lot of other viewers too.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Phact ( 4649149 )

        Movie studios gamble millions of dollars on a movie. Those are businessmen who want to maximize their possibility of success. So: Bet on some new thing nobody has heard of, OR bet on something everyone knows, has a built-in audience that will take the time to see it, and has shown success in the past? Which would you put your money on?

        • Movie studios gamble millions of dollars on a movie. Those are businessmen who want to maximize their possibility of success. So: Bet on some new thing nobody has heard of, OR bet on something everyone knows, has a built-in audience that will take the time to see it, and has shown success in the past? Which would you put your money on?

          I'd forget about the movies and invest my billion dollars in the stock market and watch it grow with much less risk and much less effort.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Phact ( 4649149 )

            Ha, ha, yeah there's not much risk in the stock market, everyone knows that!

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tragedy ( 27079 )

            I'd forget about the movies and invest my billion dollars in the stock market and watch it grow with much less risk and much less effort.

            Warner Brothers Discovery and the Safran company, who are behind this movie, are publicly traded companies. Those profits from the stock market are predicated on actual investment in actual products somewhere along the line.

      • But why not tell a NEW story?

        Go ahead, make a Superman movie. But why re-tell the same story over and over? How many "origin stories" does one guy need? How about a new plot, with new villains and a new story? Add depth to the existing material rather than simply re-hashing it?

    • At least once more, just to annoy you.

    • Re: How many times? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GeekWithAKnife ( 2717871 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @09:56AM (#65517148)
      People keep buying...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dohzer ( 867770 )

        Sadly.

      • Until they don't, see: Cinderella. That's the problem, you're taking 100 year old stories and trying to adapt them into modern circumstances. Quite often it only kind of works, not being notable at all as a success or failure. Sometimes it fails spectacularly, often because they didn't get the current zeitgeist. Very few times it becomes a breakout success. Although...

        I can't believe it! This is completely UNPOSSIBLE. We were told by Fox News, their talking heads, and the rest of the right-wing echo cham

    • Make up your fucking minds!

      Why does anyone need to make up their mind? This isn't a history lesson. This is fantasy. Fantasy of people with different opinions on how it played out.

    • This is why copyright should be 14 years. Then the studios would have to do something that is actually original. Everything is a low-effort, safe, lowest-common-denominator rehash.

    • Personally, I suspect it went a lot more like Homelander* than Super Man, but hey, what do I know!? I suspect I'm no longer the target market either way.

      * As in The Boys, on Amazon

  • This is good (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @08:43AM (#65517018)

    Some times you just want to be entertained, especially when the world seems like it's getting shittier.

    I don't need another superhero movie where it spends most of its time trying to depress me. It's OK to go 'full comic', drop the grimdark, and just have fun.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Some times you just want to be entertained, especially when the world seems like it's getting shittier.

      I don't need another superhero movie where it spends most of its time trying to depress me. It's OK to go 'full comic', drop the grimdark, and just have fun.

      Yep, the old school Superman movies (think Reeve) and cartoons (50s or 60s IIRC) were quite bright and uplifting, Superman being a good guy and the bad guys being beaten by him. It's a recent phenomina to turn everything into a dark, gritty, film grainy, speech-become-unintelligible-grunty type of film.

      Is it so wrong to have a 2 hour simplistic plot where a good guy defeats evil in lighting that means you can see what's going on?

  • Returns have been gradually falling for decades. Sure a lot of it is studios and middle men squeezing theaters for more than the market will bear leading to half an hour of ads before the movies just so the theater can stay in business. But most of it is this re-churning of the same old slop decade after decade by big Hollywood companies and theaters not wanting to take a chance on smaller studios offerings. If you don't like risk, get out of the movie business.

  • Superman is not an interesting character (Score:3)

    by blahbooboo2 ( 602610 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @10:06AM (#65517162)

    A mostly uninteresting superhero. This perfect man, with perfect super powers and is all powerful gets occasionally challenged a little bit.
    Give me batman or something any day. No wonder they have to keep rebooting superman, it's just not an interesting story. Sounds like this one did fine (not inflation adjusted numbers of course) cause its summer

    • A mostly uninteresting superhero. This perfect man, with perfect super powers

      Agreed. He has it too easy, except for Kryptonite -- and good luck finding some of that.

      Give me batman or something any day.

      Can't agree here, as it's the opposite problem: Batman is just a rich guy with expensive toys (not unlike Iron Man). No superpowers whatsoever. How are they even considered superheroes?

      But I have to admit that the Batmobile in the 1960s Adam West series was totally badass.

    • Re:Superman is not an interesting character (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @11:12AM (#65517306) Homepage Journal

      The interesting aspects of Superman are to do with his wanting to be a force for good in a complex world. He can face challenges when the world makes it hard to do the right thing, and he explore what the moral good actually is.

    • Superman _can_ be an interesting character, when written well. The probably is studios usually want to show the big, flashy, punch-up scene and that is pretty boring when it's Superman.

      Superman is at his best, I think, when we see behind the scenes. Who he is as Clark, how he navigates balancing his double identities, how he resists doing things the "easy way" with his god-like powers.

      The New Adventures Of Superman (for all its faults) got that right. It focused on Clark most of the time and brought o
    • There have been 2 Superman reboots this century. There have been 2 Batman reboots - or 3, if you count Batfleck; 4, if there is going to be a Batman in the new DCU movies. By your logic, Batman must not be an interesting story. Both Superman and Batman had something tragic happen during their childhoods, but Superman chose to not let that define him. I'd pick hope over despair.

  • We need some idealism back. The world got pretty uninspiring.

  • interesting re-framing of their failures as "super (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jayhawk0123 ( 8440955 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @10:24AM (#65517200)

    interesting re-framing of their failures as "super hero fatigue"

    pretty sure it was a case of shit story with a focus on things that didn't add to the story/action...

    We were looking for a fun, action adventure not a hammering over the head about societal issues... You can address those, but don't need to be heavy handed about it.

    • You must have missed the era when Superman was punching nazis.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ET3D ( 1169851 )

      What superhero movies are you specifically referring to that were "hammering over the head about societal issues"? I can't think of many, and those that did address social issues (Civil War, X-Men: Days of Future Past) followed well regarded comics about these issues (though haven't necessarily implemented them well).

      "Superhero fatigue" actually comes from another direction: there are just so many movies you can watch that are basically the same, and too many tie-in Marvel TV series, which the movies refere

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Superhero fatigue I believe just refers to the glut of superhero comic book movies released the past decade - there feels like a new MCU movie coming out every month, a new DC movie coming out every few months, and "everything else", with the "everything else" doesn't really generate as much buzz. Maybe a handful of movies but always overshadowed by DC/Marvel movies.

        I wouldn't even call it "woke" stuff, I'd call it just releasing tons and tons of comic book superhero movies that everyone's just tired.

        Grante

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ET3D ( 1169851 )

          Sure, there are a lot of movies, but I think that's just half the problem. As I mentioned, I feel that the Marvel TV series are more of an issue. These ad many many hours of superhero stuff to watch, and the problem is that movies then reference the series. You can't go to a movie and fully understand it without these references.

    • https://www.dc.com/blog/2017/0... [dc.com]

      "And remember boys and girls, your school - like our country - is made up of Americans of many different races, religions, and national origins. So... if YOU hear anybody talk against a schoolmate or anyone else because of his religion, race, or national origin - don't wait: tell him THAT KIND OF TALK IS UN-AMERICAN" - Superman, 1949.

      Superman has always been "woke" on societal issues and has never been quiet about it. That's what makes him super. And racists unamerican.

      Which

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      None of the bad DC movies were bad because they were "woke". They were just badly written on a technical level, and the stories were not that interesting. There was clearly a requirement from on high to make them into franchise set-up vehicles. The early Marvel stuff that was actually good worked because they were good movies by themselves, and most of the new stuff is bad in no small part because it's just there to set up the next thing.

      The Snider ones had their own issues of course.

      Gunn seems to have the

  • Doesn't it depress you, knowing that continual reboots and milking decades-old IPs for a little bit more profit is another symptom of the toxic world you're trying to escape by watching this? Doesn't the sickening taste of that greed, and that total bankruptcy of imagination, with its risk-averse end-stage crapitalism, ruin whatever 3 lines of dialog are gonna be different from the last six reboots?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ET3D ( 1169851 )

      No, it doesn't depress me. Comparisons between versions of things is something I enjoy. It's like watching a movie of a book. They may be different, but even if they're both not great, noting the differences creates for me something which transcends the originals.

      Granted, I know that's not the case for a lot of other people, but when someone tells me "that's Superman, but different in some ways", and these are ways I think I'd like (such as not being dark), this immediately makes me curious.

      I agree that the

  • I hate this with a purple passion. As an old fart that grew up in the 70's and 80's that had to live through the shit show that was the SuperFriends era with the wonder twins, the entire reason that DC got bitch slapped by Marvel in that era is because DC was so damn childish and "bright". Marvel covered tough topics and was dark. It was awesome. Marvel also bitchslapped DC at the theaters with their dark take on the superheroes. Prior to Thor Ragnarok, Marvel did humor RIGHT. The injected humor fit with th

    • Not related to your rant, which I totally disagree with but feel no need to argue, as what I like is simply different than what you like. However, I have to disagree with your sig.

      Digital is, by definition, perfect. Digital is order, it's something that is well defined. It's something that tells you precisely what it is. Even its imperfections are well defined.

      Analogue is a mess. It's a collection of physical features which produce, by total happenstance (and tweaking) something that might be pleasant. It's

      • Digital is perfect only for the parts that are not thrown away. Digital algorithms frequently parts of data streams that it deems as not necessary. Analog typically has the entire stream even if not useful or is considered noise. It comes from a different perspective of the definition of perfect. There is more than one. Digital is not complete, therefor imperfect.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tragedy ( 27079 )

      When I saw Ragnarok and Thor, a God, throw a rubber bouncy ball against a glass window that didnt break, but the returned ball knock Thor down, I just about got up and walked out.

      I'm pretty sure that ball was not supposed to be rubber. Of the things to object to there, that seems like a silly thing to object to. A more problematic thing to worry about would be the electric net gun that easily takes down the god of thunder. Not to mention the tiny little electric disk that can zap him into submission. I get that it's supposed to be advanced alien technology and that maybe more is going on than just an electric shock, but it's still a bit silly when a superhero goes from being who can

  • How many Superman movies, TV shows, and cartoons have been made in the last 70 years?
    Jesus, are we completely out of any new ideas?

    I guess they will keep recycling superman and batman until every last baby boomer is buried and forgotten. Plus 75 years. Sigh. It's going to be a long wait....

  • This story reads like the marketing folks finally beat a level in a video game.

    Maybe that point of view is part of the problem with the industry.

  • Can Superman make babies or is he sterile ??? Or would he just wreck the playpen ???? Let's make him interesting

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