'Superman' Dominates Box Office with $122M Opening

“Superman” opened with an impressive $122 million at the domestic box office, Warner Bros. told multiple outlets Sunday, after landing the year’s second-largest opening day Friday, with the film on track to gross over $217 million internationally.

The early numbers indicate “Superman” is on track through box office sales to earn back its $225 million budget, a figure The Wall Street Journal confirmed last week.

The film’s opening day Friday was the second-largest of the year—grossing $56.5 million, placing it ahead of Disney’s “Lilo and Stitch” but just behind “A Minecraft Movie,” also released by Warner Bros., which opened in April to $57.1 million.

“Superman” was directed by DC Studios co-chair James Gunn, and its early success marks a victory for Gunn and fellow co-chair Peter Safran’s reported ambitious plans to revitalize the brand and release more films and television shows in the DC Extended Universe.

The two massive openings are good news for Warner Bros., whose stock fell to a historic low in 2024 after a year of poor box office sales—the company is currently pursuing a plan to split with Discovery only three years after a blockbuster merger in 2022.

The other big hits over the weekend were films that similarly scored big other big openings over the past few weeks—“Jurassic World Rebirth” sold an estimated $40 million this weekend and “F1” held on in third place with an estimated $13 million, Deadline reported.

Before its release, “Superman” began to face backlash from right-wing critics and influencers, who decried the film as “superwoke” after Gunn called Superman an “immigrant” in an interview with the Sunday Times on July 4. However, fans and critics have mostly responded positively to the latest installation of the character. “Superman” earned 82% positive reviews from critics and 93% positive reviews from fans as of Sunday afternoon, according to Rotten Tomatoes.

“Superman” is shaping up to be the first hit for the comics brand in years. The last major hit for a DC character was “The Batman” in 2022, which grossed around$134 million on its opening weekend. In the years since, DC has produced a series of flops: “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” opened with only $30 million and “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” opened with only $27 million, both in 2023.

“The Flash” fared only a bit better the same year, grossing $55 million over its opening weekend. “Superman” also surpassed the opening weekend of “Man of Steel,” the last franchise reboot, directed by Zack Snyder and starring Henry Cavill. Snyder’s take on the iconic DC Comics character grossed around $117 million at the domestic box office when it was released in June 2013.

In an interview with The New York Times, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav praised the film’s performance and previewed Gunn and Safran’s vision for the future of the previously “underdeveloped” DC brand. “Now we have Gunn and Safran firing with a 10-year plan,” Zaslav told the Times. “‘Supergirl’ has already been shot. They’re working on Wonder Woman. They’re working on Batman.”