Three weeks out from its highly anticipated release, Warner Bros./DC Studios’ “Superman” has hit box office tracking, with the first round of projections forecasting a wide range from $95 million to $125 million.
Box office and studio insiders tell TheWrap that “Superman” has racked up $10 million in ticket presales so far and is hoping to build up more buzz as the film’s cast, led by David Corenswet as Clark Kent, are set for press junkets and screenings in Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, London, Paris and Beijing over the coming weeks.
In terms of comparisons, an opening in the upper range of tracking would be short of the $134 million opening of “The Batman” in March 2022, but would be on par or slightly above the $118 million opening of “Superman” director James Gunn’s last film, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” in May 2023.
Anything above $100 million would be taken as a victory for Warner Bros., but what the studio really needs is incredibly strong word-of-mouth similar to its recent hits like “A Minecraft Movie” and “Sinners,” especially considering that “Superman” is not just trying to win interest for itself, but in the new DC cinematic universe that Gunn and fellow DC Studios chief Peter Safran are launching with upcoming titles like next year’s “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow.”
While the superhero genre is still capable of yielding hits like “Guardians Vol. 3,” “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” and most recently, the $1.33 billion “Deadpool & Wolverine,” it no longer has the high level of box office consistency that it once had.
Those hits have been interspersed with films like this year’s Marvel titles “Captain America: Brave New World” and “Thunderbolts*,” both of which failed to top $500 million worldwide, as well as the slew of poorly performing DC films that Warner Bros. released in 2023 ahead of Gunn’s reboot.
With that underperformance in mind, an opening weekend for “Superman” below “The Batman” wouldn’t be surprising. But rave, “can’t miss”-level audience buzz would go a long way to helping the Man of Steel fly high for weeks at the box office and perhaps get casual moviegoers interested in the DC films to come.
