‘Superman’ Box Office Topping $400 Million Total Worldwide Box Office

After excellent weekday numbers, DC Studios is celebrating as Superman is on its way to saving the day with a big $400 million total after its second weekend at the worldwide box office.

While slightly lower than more bullish estimates, including my own, the primary question was whether Superman had enough power to make it past $400 million this second weekend of release, which puts it on a steady course to cruise past $500 million and prove “DC is back.” We’ll see precisely how far beyond that figure Superman can climb, but for now this is two weekends in a row of good news and good numbers for the studio.

Forbes‘Superman’ Tops Tuesday Box Office With Big $17 Million Domestic HaulBy Mark Hughes

Superman Saves The Day

Writer-director and DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn should be flying high on not only the successful debut of a new era for DC, but also the widespread critical and mainstream public embrace of Superman. He made Superman likeable, relatable, and relevant again, and gave us a helluva fun time doing it.

But it was always going to be hard for one film to revive not just Superman’s own suffering brand, but also DC’s entire cinematic reputation and financial future. This was almost a job for a Mission: Impossible team, but despite all of the baggage and odds, Gunn made the right choices and trusted people’s hearts to respond to the innate goodness and kindness of the character. It was a leap of faith, and there was no guarantee anyone would be there to catch him.

But that’s what was on the line, however much it was understandably necessary to downplay that reality ahead of opening weekend (for one’s own emotional sanity alone, let alone from a business perspective to manage expectations). Had Superman failed to gain altitude and wound up somewhere in similar box office territory with the previous nine failed DCEU cinematic efforts, it’s unlikely that everything would have proceeded according to plan.

A $400-450 million finish would’ve been a sign of such deep global mainstream audience rejection of DC and Superman that even what is arguably the best possible cinematic version to win everybody over again couldn’t overcome the disinterest and distrust.

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And at that point, I suspect any projects not already in production would’ve been “paused” while a big reassessment took place, potentially for example pivoting toward Matt Reeves’ The Batman franchise as a last chance to lay some foundations for a larger cinematic world around the character and the superheroes around him (Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing) as well as villains worthy of their own films and HBO series.

Meanwhile, they could halt further development on the rest of the DC slate and decide to license some bundled characters off to various other studios, or just take the pain of waiting for Reeves to complete his first Batman trilogy and then attempt to introduce a smaller slate of DC heroes – Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, and a few others – as the basis for a smaller new DCU founded on The Batman world.

Which would be akin to an alternate reality where 2013’s Man of Steel was released to expand The Dark Knight Trilogy into an entire DCEU, which would’ve all but certainly have made at least the first few films much bigger grossers and potentially provided a stable enough and lucrative enough DCEU to have survived.

The chance for a do-over at that approach, if the DCU launch with Superman had failed, would seem too tempting to ignore. Perhaps even trying to keep David Corenswet in the Superman role and merely retooling the world around him and the rest of the DCU toward something more like The Batman.

Or maybe it’s more likely they’d decide to expand out The Batman into a bat-world, but without too many other heroes. Some characters like Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, Catwoman, Green Arrow, Black Canary, and similar non-powered heroes could work as spinoffs. Then, they could simply treat Superman and others as standalone solo franchises instead of a shared world, which might mean a lot of licensing deals for those characters instead of further attempts at reboots that drown in red ink.

That all means of course that, had Superman not enjoyed so much acclaim and family love translating into the box office numbers it needed to claim success, DC Studios still had some strong go-to options in their bag of tricks. That wouldn’t erase the financial pain involved, nor would it make up for the rejection of Superman despite doing pretty much everything exactly right – I will say again, if audiences aren’t going to show up and reward this Superman movie, there’s probably no movie the studio could’ve made and released that would’ve worked at this point.

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Superman

Luckily for the studio, none of that happened (although many of us still also hope Matt Reeves is allowed to continue his bat-world and expand it as long as WBD and DC Studios can convince him to do it), and Superman is off to a good start with lots of room to build and score much higher box office in the future.

So with $400 million under his belt, DC’s iconic hero has risen to the first two challenges, and faces just one more weekend to confirm how bright an already sunny future will be.

The next big test to see if Superman has fully regained his box office powers comes next weekend, with Fantastic Four headed for what appears to be opening around $120 million in my estimations. While most tracking points to a roughly $105 million debut for Marvel’s 2025 tentpole, I expect it to overperform against expectations similar to Superman, but with much better international ticket sales.

Superman needs to hold well against the MCU’s challenger, if it wants to do more than just dive across the $500 million finish line. After this weekend, it needs at least another $100 million globally, so a third weekend total cume of about $465-475 is where we want to see it if there’s to be any chance at reaching $600 million.

Superman should easily pass $500 million at this rate, so now we wait to see it’s hold against Fantastic Four: First Steps next weekend, and whether the Man of Steel can fly higher toward $600 million or wind up at still safe but less impressive $550 million territory. Stay tuned for updates and check this space again soon.