Don’t forget that we’re entering a lengthy holiday stretch and Monday-Wednesday will function like another weekend. That’s the whole strategy of releasing a film over a long weekend. I wouldn’t expect any major dip from day-to-day until next weekend, by which point Superman will already be over $100 million.
Actually a LOT of people work on Monday (even the financial markets are open) which means there’s definately going to be a drop-off. Are we also forgetting Wednesday and Thursday of next week?
I think many people didn’t realize the movie even opened on Wednesday. The change was so last minute that most of the posters I saw still had June 30th.
I’m gonna guess that Superman’s take will be big this weekend. Agree with the above posters. Friday’s numbers will be much more telling.
zzzzzzzzz,
Well, the first Pirates movie made $348 million worldwide, better than its $305 million domestic take. According to some logical or geometric property (transitive, perhaps?), if POTC2 beats SR domestically and POTC2 follows the standard set by POTC1, POTC2 will beat SR internationally as well.
I’m going to go with that logic unless you can explain to me why the sequel to POTC is going to have dramatically less international appeal than the original film did (despite the fact that domestic interest appears fairly similar) or why a superhero who fights for “Truth, Justice and the American Way” is going to have a dramatically higher international appeal than a sequel to a film that already did $348 million international.
I’m not saying that what you’re predicting *won’t* happen, but you’d need to provide some logic to explain how or why it’s going to happen…
-Daniel
The “truth, justice… ” criticism really is silly. Superman is a hero for all of humanity. Certainly he is originally an American creation, but its also true that “the american way” isn’t what it was when that line was created. He stands for truth, justice, and all good things that all people EVERYWHERE can aspire to. I really don’t think theres anything wrong with him being a superhero with international appeal!
Dixon Steele:
“Haven’t seen it yet, but I understand that Superman no longer says and “the American Way”.
True?”
Sort of. He never says anything approaching the phrase himself, but Perry White (you can see the scene in the trailer, so this is no spoiler) in the midst of throwing out reporter queries about Superman off-handedly adds “Politics! Does he still stand for truth, justice, all that stuff?”
Over on the right-wing “libertas” film blog (which, politics aside, has fairly lively talkback) this has touched off the expected hyperbolic outcry.
“Certainly he is originally an American creation, but its also true that “the american way” isn’t what it was when that line was created.”
Oh yeah, Zach? Jim Crow laws still ruled in the 30′s, and women didn’t even work.
For all our problems now, I’d say the American way is at least a little bit closer to what it should be.
I also wouldn’t be surprised to see certain outlets who would benefit from Superman backlash (like Fox and their “news” division) go all-out on this topic next week.
In fact, some right-wing talking head was on MSNBC the other night talking about how Superman Returns glorifies single-motherhood and non-traditional families. This will just be icing on the cake.
Seriously, I wonder if that’ll hurt it’s domestic boxoffice in the long run. If a solid portion of the conservative 40% of the U.S. population is turned off by that, is it worth that lost domestic box office to appeal to international crowds a bit more? I’ve already heard from a few conservative friends that they aren’t interested because of the seemingly anti-American feel of it. A couple other conservative friends, though, said fuck it, I wanna see it. So who can say. But never underestimate the power of that audience to make or break a movie.
I don’t care what excuses people give for SR, the fact is that the numbers so far are not very impressive.
Comparing SR to Batman Begins is somewhat deceptive because Batman Begins had a much more difficult time of it, IMO, due to the fact that the last 2 terrible Batmans were fairly recent films whereas SR 3 & 4 were done way back in the 80s and many people have long since forgotten them. Plus Batman Begins did not receive nearly as much HYPE as SR is getting.
$21 million, including $1.2 for the IMAX version is better than Batman Begins but WAY OFF what Spiderman 2 did. And $11 million for its second day is just pathetic when you consider that this film is on over 3900 screens.
SR will certainly be one the year’s biggest films, however it doesn’t appear to be an out of the ballpark homerun. It has so so word of mouth (most people want to see it once and that√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s it because the story isn√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t more original than Superman I, and it feels WAY TOO LONG), and a film that has basically cost $300 million to make and market should be an out of the ballpark homerun.
A lot of people are mentioning the effect of the last 2 Batmans on the opening of Begins. But what about the effect of Smallville on the opening of Superman Returns? Actually, I’m not sure what effect the show has, and whether it will help or hurt the movie’s opening and legs. Any thoughts?
Colin, Smallville actually had an excellent season in terms of ratings. A lot of the hard-core Superman fans took that as a sign that the character was hot again.
It’s obviously far too early to tell, but perhaps it’s the old “why buy what you can get for free?” cliche?
Yeah, lesterg, that’s what I’m wondering. Does Smallville raise awarnesss of Superman (especially in the younger set), helping SR, or do people say, hey, I can watch Michal Rosenbaum for free every week on he WB/CW?
Do people think Smallville is good for what it is and want to watch the better sepcial effects in SR, or are they resentful that Welling wasn’t cast?
I’m not really sure.
Zach – X3 played on 3,714 screens at its widest release so SR already has a major advantage there. Plus, SR will widen its release to 4,065 screens starting today.
SR should, based on sheer numbers, do better than X3. So it’s not a matter of faith – it’s a matter of math.
SR has a lot of buzz and exposure, if it doesn’t gross more than $300 million domestic, then it will be because of word of mouth.
Tom, if Superman can’t outearn X3′s three day take in 5-6 days with 300+ more screens…how exactly is it going to top X3′s domestic total?
Judging from the word-of-mouth thus far and assuming Superman doesn’t break out in the next few days – we’re probably looking at a total in high 100′s or extremely low 200′s.
I’ll put cash money on POTC2 trouncing SR overseas, and it won’t even be close. AT LEAST $100M will separate them.
In the end, the DVDs (especially when WB starts double-dipping with special editions the fan boys will be forced to buy to see the fabled Superman on Kypton scenes) will finally drive this turgid mess into the black.
Hey, look at it this way – the less money it actually makes for the studio, the higher the chances that Jon “Giant Spider” Peters will finally be driven from top tiers of this business.
Lesterg – I don’t know if I understand you correctly, but I didn’t state that SR will definitely out gross X2 domestically, I simply stated that it should.
I agree that SR is off to a fairly slow start, however the 3-day take that you spoke of for X3 was based on its holiday weekend numbers.
The holiday weekend for this current box office period didn’t officially begin until today, so the true head-to-head battle hasn’t been measured yet.
With SR being on so many screens, I really don’t see how it would do worse than X3. However, I wonder if it will do as well as something like Spiderman 2 or even Revenge of the Sith. And since SR cost so much money to make, I think that WB has to be hoping for Revenge of the Sith like returns.
If SR comes in under X3, as you seem to think that it will, then it will be a shock for everyone involved.
Wow. Just…wow.
This site – along with Poland’s – is one of the most disturbing, nauseating and dispiriting sites on the Net. More so than any neo-Nazi, bestiality or child porn site. Really. All this excruciating blather about box-office is too, too sick.
Bleah.
Tom, if Superman can’t outearn X3′s three day take in 5-6 days with 300+ more screens…how exactly is it going to top X3′s domestic total?
Judging from the word-of-mouth thus far and assuming Superman doesn’t break out in the next few days – we’re probably looking at a total in high 100′s or extremely low 200′s.
I’m a manager at a movie theater and I have to say that we have been having very disappointing business for Superman Returns. It started off alright on Wed. with the film opening on 3 screens at the theater I work at. However the business was confined to mostly one print of the film while the other 2 prints did poorly. On Thurs. the business was more evenly divided and if you add up the 3 screens totals for each day I would say we did about the same amount of business each day but it was still lackluster (i.e. no big crowds were coming in).
However last night (Fri.) Superman Returns on 3 screens got trounced by The Devil Wears Prada on 1 screen. While we were selling out that film the 3 screens for Superman were mostly empty. In fact for one of the showtimes one of the auditoriums of Superman had only 3 people in it (with seating for over 500 people).
And I wouldn’t say it was mostly an all female crowd that was coming in for Prada. Yes there were quite a few women in the crowd, but there were also alot of couples and alot of teens which was surprising since that was what I thought would be seeing SR instead.
I don’t know but I think someone at FOX should be patting themselves on the back for deciding to counterprogram Prada against SR and I suspect someone at WB has got to be a little nervous.
Completely expected and essentially meaningless. The real picture will emerge with today’s #’s.
Don’t forget that we’re entering a lengthy holiday stretch and Monday-Wednesday will function like another weekend. That’s the whole strategy of releasing a film over a long weekend. I wouldn’t expect any major dip from day-to-day until next weekend, by which point Superman will already be over $100 million.
Actually a LOT of people work on Monday (even the financial markets are open) which means there’s definately going to be a drop-off. Are we also forgetting Wednesday and Thursday of next week?
And Batman Begins made about $9m on Thursday, so SR continues to be a bit ahead. I agree with lesterg, though, Friday’s numbers are the key.
I think many people didn’t realize the movie even opened on Wednesday. The change was so last minute that most of the posters I saw still had June 30th.
I’m gonna guess that Superman’s take will be big this weekend. Agree with the above posters. Friday’s numbers will be much more telling.
War of the Worlds did 14 on it’s second day (also a Thursday) that’s significant.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZ….
Wake me when we get to July 10th and we finally get to see how bad POTC clobbers SR. Until then, everything is pretty meaningless.
POTC2 will beat SR in US boxoffice but Superman Returns will do better worldwide than POTC2.
zzzzzzzzz,
Well, the first Pirates movie made $348 million worldwide, better than its $305 million domestic take. According to some logical or geometric property (transitive, perhaps?), if POTC2 beats SR domestically and POTC2 follows the standard set by POTC1, POTC2 will beat SR internationally as well.
I’m going to go with that logic unless you can explain to me why the sequel to POTC is going to have dramatically less international appeal than the original film did (despite the fact that domestic interest appears fairly similar) or why a superhero who fights for “Truth, Justice and the American Way” is going to have a dramatically higher international appeal than a sequel to a film that already did $348 million international.
I’m not saying that what you’re predicting *won’t* happen, but you’d need to provide some logic to explain how or why it’s going to happen…
-Daniel
Haven’t seen it yet, but I understand that Superman no longer says and “the American Way”.
True?
Dixon, haven’t seen it either – but the righties are starting to attack the film based on that. I think even Drudge had it on his front page earlier.
The “truth, justice… ” criticism really is silly. Superman is a hero for all of humanity. Certainly he is originally an American creation, but its also true that “the american way” isn’t what it was when that line was created. He stands for truth, justice, and all good things that all people EVERYWHERE can aspire to. I really don’t think theres anything wrong with him being a superhero with international appeal!
Dixon Steele:
“Haven’t seen it yet, but I understand that Superman no longer says and “the American Way”.
True?”
Sort of. He never says anything approaching the phrase himself, but Perry White (you can see the scene in the trailer, so this is no spoiler) in the midst of throwing out reporter queries about Superman off-handedly adds “Politics! Does he still stand for truth, justice, all that stuff?”
Over on the right-wing “libertas” film blog (which, politics aside, has fairly lively talkback) this has touched off the expected hyperbolic outcry.
“Certainly he is originally an American creation, but its also true that “the american way” isn’t what it was when that line was created.”
Oh yeah, Zach? Jim Crow laws still ruled in the 30′s, and women didn’t even work.
For all our problems now, I’d say the American way is at least a little bit closer to what it should be.
I also wouldn’t be surprised to see certain outlets who would benefit from Superman backlash (like Fox and their “news” division) go all-out on this topic next week.
In fact, some right-wing talking head was on MSNBC the other night talking about how Superman Returns glorifies single-motherhood and non-traditional families. This will just be icing on the cake.
And the New York Times will publish the whereabouts of the largest Kryptonite location.
He’s also an illegal immigrant AND a dead-beat dad. Man, it’s like a right-wing wet dream.
Seriously, I wonder if that’ll hurt it’s domestic boxoffice in the long run. If a solid portion of the conservative 40% of the U.S. population is turned off by that, is it worth that lost domestic box office to appeal to international crowds a bit more? I’ve already heard from a few conservative friends that they aren’t interested because of the seemingly anti-American feel of it. A couple other conservative friends, though, said fuck it, I wanna see it. So who can say. But never underestimate the power of that audience to make or break a movie.
I don’t care what excuses people give for SR, the fact is that the numbers so far are not very impressive.
Comparing SR to Batman Begins is somewhat deceptive because Batman Begins had a much more difficult time of it, IMO, due to the fact that the last 2 terrible Batmans were fairly recent films whereas SR 3 & 4 were done way back in the 80s and many people have long since forgotten them. Plus Batman Begins did not receive nearly as much HYPE as SR is getting.
$21 million, including $1.2 for the IMAX version is better than Batman Begins but WAY OFF what Spiderman 2 did. And $11 million for its second day is just pathetic when you consider that this film is on over 3900 screens.
SR will certainly be one the year’s biggest films, however it doesn’t appear to be an out of the ballpark homerun. It has so so word of mouth (most people want to see it once and that√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s it because the story isn√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t more original than Superman I, and it feels WAY TOO LONG), and a film that has basically cost $300 million to make and market should be an out of the ballpark homerun.
A lot of people are mentioning the effect of the last 2 Batmans on the opening of Begins. But what about the effect of Smallville on the opening of Superman Returns? Actually, I’m not sure what effect the show has, and whether it will help or hurt the movie’s opening and legs. Any thoughts?
Colin, Smallville actually had an excellent season in terms of ratings. A lot of the hard-core Superman fans took that as a sign that the character was hot again.
It’s obviously far too early to tell, but perhaps it’s the old “why buy what you can get for free?” cliche?
Yeah, lesterg, that’s what I’m wondering. Does Smallville raise awarnesss of Superman (especially in the younger set), helping SR, or do people say, hey, I can watch Michal Rosenbaum for free every week on he WB/CW?
Do people think Smallville is good for what it is and want to watch the better sepcial effects in SR, or are they resentful that Welling wasn’t cast?
I’m not really sure.
If X3 ends up making more money than Superman Returns, I really will have lost a lot of faith in American moviegoers…and the WB marketing department.
Zach – X3 played on 3,714 screens at its widest release so SR already has a major advantage there. Plus, SR will widen its release to 4,065 screens starting today.
SR should, based on sheer numbers, do better than X3. So it’s not a matter of faith – it’s a matter of math.
SR has a lot of buzz and exposure, if it doesn’t gross more than $300 million domestic, then it will be because of word of mouth.
Tom, if Superman can’t outearn X3′s three day take in 5-6 days with 300+ more screens…how exactly is it going to top X3′s domestic total?
Judging from the word-of-mouth thus far and assuming Superman doesn’t break out in the next few days – we’re probably looking at a total in high 100′s or extremely low 200′s.
Sorry forgot to sign above.
I’ll put cash money on POTC2 trouncing SR overseas, and it won’t even be close. AT LEAST $100M will separate them.
In the end, the DVDs (especially when WB starts double-dipping with special editions the fan boys will be forced to buy to see the fabled Superman on Kypton scenes) will finally drive this turgid mess into the black.
Hey, look at it this way – the less money it actually makes for the studio, the higher the chances that Jon “Giant Spider” Peters will finally be driven from top tiers of this business.
Lesterg – I don’t know if I understand you correctly, but I didn’t state that SR will definitely out gross X2 domestically, I simply stated that it should.
I agree that SR is off to a fairly slow start, however the 3-day take that you spoke of for X3 was based on its holiday weekend numbers.
The holiday weekend for this current box office period didn’t officially begin until today, so the true head-to-head battle hasn’t been measured yet.
With SR being on so many screens, I really don’t see how it would do worse than X3. However, I wonder if it will do as well as something like Spiderman 2 or even Revenge of the Sith. And since SR cost so much money to make, I think that WB has to be hoping for Revenge of the Sith like returns.
If SR comes in under X3, as you seem to think that it will, then it will be a shock for everyone involved.
Wow. Just…wow.
This site – along with Poland’s – is one of the most disturbing, nauseating and dispiriting sites on the Net. More so than any neo-Nazi, bestiality or child porn site. Really. All this excruciating blather about box-office is too, too sick.
Bleah.
Tom, if Superman can’t outearn X3′s three day take in 5-6 days with 300+ more screens…how exactly is it going to top X3′s domestic total?
Judging from the word-of-mouth thus far and assuming Superman doesn’t break out in the next few days – we’re probably looking at a total in high 100′s or extremely low 200′s.
I’m a manager at a movie theater and I have to say that we have been having very disappointing business for Superman Returns. It started off alright on Wed. with the film opening on 3 screens at the theater I work at. However the business was confined to mostly one print of the film while the other 2 prints did poorly. On Thurs. the business was more evenly divided and if you add up the 3 screens totals for each day I would say we did about the same amount of business each day but it was still lackluster (i.e. no big crowds were coming in).
However last night (Fri.) Superman Returns on 3 screens got trounced by The Devil Wears Prada on 1 screen. While we were selling out that film the 3 screens for Superman were mostly empty. In fact for one of the showtimes one of the auditoriums of Superman had only 3 people in it (with seating for over 500 people).
And I wouldn’t say it was mostly an all female crowd that was coming in for Prada. Yes there were quite a few women in the crowd, but there were also alot of couples and alot of teens which was surprising since that was what I thought would be seeing SR instead.
I don’t know but I think someone at FOX should be patting themselves on the back for deciding to counterprogram Prada against SR and I suspect someone at WB has got to be a little nervous.