Superman Opens With a Respectable $21 Million
Filed under: Action, New Releases, Box Office, Fandom, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
Well the numbers are in, and Warner Brothers' decision to move Bryan Singer's blockbuster-hopeful Superman Returns forward by a few days seems to have paid off. Early accounting has Superman Returns pulling in a very respectable 21 million dollars on it's opening night, good for eighth place on the all-time Wednesday opener list. Now sure, that's only half of what fellow superhero flick Spider-Man 2 (the Wednesday opener record holder) raked in, but keep in mind Superman has been on a very long silver screen hiatus, and still has a major July 4th weekend coming up for it's opening week. To put this into perspective, War of the Worlds had very similar opening numbers on a Wednesday, and went on to have an enormous opening week and a great box office run overall. If you are rooting for Superman, there are plenty of positive indications in these early numbers.The rub, of course, is that Warner Bros. knows Superman desperately needs a great opening week, because that's about all the time they'll have before meeting some very serious box office competition in the form of the very anticipated return of Johnny Depp and his Pirates of the Caribbean. It was the fear of this flick which chased Superman back to Wednesday to begin with, hoping for a few more days of box office dominance for the Man of Steel. Hang on tight, kids, it's going to be a great box office ride these next few weeks. ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-29-2006 @ 4:47PM
Proteus said...
As excited as I am for both Superman and Pirates, I will see Superman on opening weekend, but the next weekend is reserved for A Scanner Darkly. And possibly seeing Superman again. The prospect of being in a room full of (much younger) kids is not at all an impediment to Superman, but to appreciate the lunacy of Depp, I need to let the lunacy of excitable tots pass by. Pirates 1 was fantastic in that it just kept building larger audiences, but I suspect Pirates 2 will have an early peak, and a long, hopefully slow decline. Superman, however, should stay on screens through Labor Day.
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6-29-2006 @ 5:06PM
JFC said...
Nikke Finke seems to believe these numbers aren't that great, and that the "gay whisper campaign" against the movie has hurt it. Shouldn't Cinematical take some credit for that? You did, after all, wildly misrepresent several quotes about the film's production to make it look as if the director were staging an on-set gay orgy.
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6-29-2006 @ 5:31PM
UHung2 said...
Bryan is gay?
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6-29-2006 @ 6:05PM
bgdc said...
I'll be shocked if Superman breaks 200 million domestically. And it's not the 19 year hiatus that's hurting it. Spidey did 100 million its first weekend because the story was appealing. There's nothing about superman to draw in audiences...he's not an interesting figure. Wolverine, Spider-man, Batman are characters that strike a cord with audiences. Supes - he's just a limp-wristed boy scout in tights.
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6-29-2006 @ 6:25PM
Martha Fischer said...
Yeah, JFC, but we thought it was a GOOD thing.
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6-29-2006 @ 9:18PM
Nobody said...
Superman ought to exceed $200 million. Batman Begins grew slowly, taking 8 weeks to reach the 200 mark, because the public was skeptical about another Batman film. But its ultimate success and popularity should lead to public confidence and positive expectations about Superman.
Besides, it's been 19 years since the last Superman movie, rather than just 8 for the last Batman.
Spidey didn't do $115 mil in three days because the story was appealing. That isn't enough time for word of mouth to spread. It did 115 because it was the first Spider-Man movie ever and people had waited 40 years to see him swinging through New York. But the reason Spidey went on to do $400 million IS because the story was appealing, positive word of mouth, and people wanted to see it again.
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6-29-2006 @ 9:43PM
JFC said...
OK, Martha. So long as everyone knows not to believe anything you write.
Coupled with Katrina Longworth's (since deleted) remark about which character in Brokeback Mountain was "the real fag," though, it seemed a bit fishy.
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7-01-2006 @ 2:22PM
jdragon said...
Superman Returns was pretty good! I'm going to go see it again!
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