Superman soared over the box office

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the “paycheck hypothesis”, which I made up, theorizing that generally, people will only pay to go see one movie per a given two-week paycheck period. Because Jurassic World Rebirth and Superman were opening in the same paycheck period, and Rebirth overperformed its expectations, I wondered if the paycheck hypothesis would kick in and hurt Superman at the box office. Answer: no. Superman did VERY well in its opening weekend.

The film clocked $122 million in its domestic opening weekend, a number I am sure will go up once the actual earnings are released later today. That is a terrific start for any film, but especially a film meant to set up a whole new cinematic universe (Supergirl is coming in 2026, which means MORE KRYPTO). James Gunn took to Threads to thank audiences for turning up for the movie:

Superman logged an A- CinemaScore, with a solid A from the under-24 set. That bodes well for the film’s legs, and especially well for the long-term health of this new franchise, as they now fully have kids on board. One thing that propelled Marvel’s dominance in the 2010s is that they captured kids with Iron Man, who were then young adults by the time they got to Avengers: Endgame eleven years later. You get kids onside, and you have a built-in audience for a while. 

What isn’t great for Superman’s legs, and might be a trouble spot for the new DC Universe, is that the film opened with just $95 million internationally. That number is so low I thought it was wrong the first time I saw it. Superhero movies generally travel well, but this is now the second superhero movie this year to open in the $90 million range, Captain America: Brave New World being the other one. What they both have in common are heroes heavily associated with America, which might be a sign that international ire at America’s nationalistic behavior is turning the rest of the world off. Note, this isn’t impacting American films in general, as Jurassic World Rebirth is a Hollywood production, but it opened with $171 million internationally. It might just be international audiences taking their irritation out on movies with characters heavily associated with “the American way”. We’ll see if two turns into a trend. 

But I am very glad for the paycheck hypothesis to be proven wrong, as it is good for movies and movie theaters when audiences are excited by films like Superman. As I’ve said before, we do not have an economic engine to drive the film industry like theatrical distribution. If we’re going to have a healthy film industry, we need people to go see movies in theaters, and for two weekends in a row, people have done just that. (I have recently been wondering if watching the film industry struggle with new technologies and a fading audience is at all how people felt watching the auto industry die in the 1970s and 1980s.)

Now the question is whether we can maintain this momentum throughout the rest of July. Superman should have an easy path to a second week at #1, as this week’s big films are I Know What You Did Last Summer, Eddington, and a new Smurfs movie. None of these are expected to open over $30 million, Eddington isn’t expected to open over $10 million. But two weeks from now brings Fantastic Four. It’s currently tracking to open in the $125 million range, which would put it on par with Superman. That would be the best outcome for everyone, for both of these movies to excel despite close quarters. I’ve said all along, though, it could be trouble for two superhero movies, especially with a similar family-friendly tone, to open so close together. I would love to be wrong again.