We’ve talked quite a bit in recent weeks about this weekend’s tentpole release, and while some clarity has started to present itself, there’s still slight debate around the internet and the industry as a whole about what the rebooted DC Studios (re)launch film will achieve in its domestic debut.
Admittedly,
our own models
last month were on the bullish end (more on that below) with some internal experimentation involved — models that we
have been and continue to revise going forward after having overshot several June releases in long lead outlooks. On the flip side, other sources had been suggestive of an opening potentially
under $100 million.
Typically, our goal is to find a reasonable floor and midpoint and work upward in late-stage tracking if enough data and observation points justify it. Recently, we’ve had to employ the opposite strategy more often than usual. Barring any
Minecraft– or
Inside Out 2-like explosion of non-ordinary walk-up sales for
Superman over the next few days, this looks to be a similar case of that.
With that prologue out of the way, here’s where the science and the art of things stand for
Superman‘s opening box office trajectory as of Thursday.
Superman (2025)
BOT Domestic Weekend Forecast Range:
$125 — 150 million (daily pinpoints in the chart below)
Traditional Industry Tracking: ~$100 million+
Key Tracking Factors & Rationale:
- Superman preview pre-sales generally followed an expected path in our T-minus 6-to-2-weeks-before-opening projections. That crowded summer corridor saw it competing with the likes of Jurassic World Rebirth, F1: The Movie, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, and other mid-to-late June players. The biggest unknown in our models (walk-up business and word-of-mouth-driven pre-sales after previews) won’t be fully known until opening weekend has started.
- That said, while acceleration has been very respectable in the days since the Fourth of July holiday frame ended and focused shifted toward this release, it has not yet reached levels necessary to say that pre-sales as a singular metric by themselves support the kind of $154 million-plus opening performance we and other sources measured as achievable from before-ticket-on-sale windows last month.
- Thursday currently looks to be on pace for roughly $20 million from domestic previews, potentially upward of $22 million or more if walk-up business reaches beyond the fan audience and into more casual and family moviegoers.
- This follows Tuesday’s Prime Early Access screenings which drew just under $3 million per multiple sources and are expected to be included in the studio’s official weekend reporting.
- Post-Thursday outlooks are where things get a little intriguing, especially with regard to daily shares. In our exhibitor samples, Superman has consistently paced about 5 to 8 percent behind comparable titles such as Thunderbolts*, Deadpool & Wolverine, The Flash and Thor: Love and Thunder in terms of how much Thursday’s pre-sales account for the weekend against the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday daily layout as a whole.
- In other words, Superman‘s pre-sales are slightly less front-loaded to Thursday previews than those films were at the same point before release. Partly a result of Tuesday’s siphoning of demand via the Prime Early Access shows, this is where word-of-mouth, review, and walk-up expected impact become the final remaining variables to extrapolate.
- Demographically, Supermanhas been driven largely by an adult male audience up to this point, though we have been aiming to account for a potentially late-blooming factor: family and kid appeal, especially those outside major metro and coastal areas where DC films tend to perform strongest. Will everyone else show up, and why would they?
- As one of the most recognizable western pop culture characters of the last century, and acknowledging the selectivity casual moviegoers now have toward superhero and comic book movies, word of mouth and response to reviews have been an important but volatile element in long-range modeling.
- To that end, critics are largely positive toward the film with an 83 percent score from 235 Rotten Tomatoes submissions, in addition to an early audience score of 96 percent following Tuesday’s Prime shows.
- One of several theories in this potential (and highly debatable) acceleration of interest from families has been tied to the lack of midsummer animated hits which often dominate that audience in July.
- While many recent DC films for top-tier characters have leaned into darker, brooding tones without much comedy, this Superman is not that and marketing has made it very clear. (“The Krypto Factor”?)
- Last year, Inside Out 2 and Despicable Me 4 drew blockbuster numbers during June and July to the tune of a combined $1.01 billion domestically. Short of last month’s How to Train Your Dragon remake ($228.5 million so far) and Elio ($55.2 million), there has been no new blockbuster theatrical offering for kids and families in theaters for a month now.
- Devil’s advocate: May’s Lilo & Stitch ($410.4 million so far) was a major presence for this audience in early summer, though speculatively leaving an open market for that audience in summer’s back half. Also, Jurassic World Rebirth is playing well among families with teens, but it falls outside our comp group of G- and PG-rated summer tentpoles with a touch of comical lightness and all-audience accessibility about them, ala Superman, which we now know it has a few mature-leaning scenes that may put off parents of young children.
- On the intangible side of projecting, Supermanhas come within domestic political crosshairs this week with multiple media outlets opining and fueling social discourse on James Gunn’s commentary about the movie and character’s thematic relevance to real-world immigration issues.
- Whether or not this has a material effect on box office is incredibly challenging to predict, but if it does, it will most likely be across middle America with conservative-leaning fans and parents. That is exactly where this film needs to play with above-average appeal to reach higher projections.
- Lastly, our long-range models have proven overly aggressive on a few DC films in recent years, a factor behind recent ranges scaling back following our six-week models to attempt some compensation without also ignoring other unique signals observed for this particular release.
