Superman is off to a great start at the box office. James Gunn kicked off his reboot of the DC Universe with the second best opening of his career, and the best ever for a solo Superman movie.
According to Deadline, Superman made $123 million in the U.S. over its opening weekend, and a further $95 million internationally for a total worldwide box office of $217 million. That makes it the third-biggest movie opening of the year, behind A Minecraft Movie and Jurassic World Rebirth — and well ahead of Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts*.
It’s a new record for a solo Superman movie, just ahead of Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel starring Henry Cavill, which opened to $116 million in 2013. But Snyder’s double-header Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice beats it — that film had a massive $166 million opening back in 2016. For Gunn, it’s his second best opening behind Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which did $146.5 million in 2017.
Superman’s box office success seems to have been powered by positive sentiment and word of mouth. Despite some political controversy around Gunn’s provocative framing of Superman as an immigrant story, audiences and critics seem to agree that he nailed it. The movie’s Rotten Tomatoes score from critics is 83% fresh, and it has a solid if unspectacular score of 68 on Metacritic.
Meanwhile, moviegoers are really loving it. Superman has an A- CinemaScore and 93% on Rotten Tomatoes’ audience-powered Popcornometer. It even has a strong rating of 4.0 on the hardcore cinephiles’ network Letterboxd.
Much was riding on the success of Superman, a high-stakes relaunch of the floundering DC Universe for studio Warner Bros. (It’s also arguably an important moment for superhero movies as a whole, which have had a wobbly few years.) Warner CEO David Zaslav installed Gunn and producer Peter Safran as co-heads of the new DC Studios, and Gunn opted to launch the effort with his own take on Superman — an iconic character, but one that’s notoriously tricky to get right on film.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, the movie’s $225 million budget, while hardly small, was kept under control by avoiding starry casting. Warner Bros. is said to want the movie to gross a relatively modest $500 million worldwide — which, on the basis of this opening weekend, is easily within reach. Zaslav has said that DC Studios “could and should be a game changer” for the studio, so he’ll be pleased with the result.
For his part, Gunn took to Threads to express his thanks for fans’ support. “I’m incredibly grateful for your enthusiasm and kind words over the past few days,” he posted. “We’ve had a lot of ‘Super’ in Superman over the years, and I’m happy to have made a movie that focuses on the ‘man’ part of the equation — a kind person always looking out for those in need. That that resonates so powerfully with so many people across the world is in itself a hopeful testament to the kindness and quality of human beings. Thank you. ❤️“
