that’s being headed up by Gunn and David Safran, the co-heads of DC Studios. The movie needs to deliver, and that means doing big business at the box office. Now, we have a sense of what that might look like on opening weekend.
Though it’s relatively early in the tracking cycle, “Superman” is currently set to earn anywhere between $90 and $145 million in its opening weekend, depending on which tracking service or distribution sources one is speaking to (per Deadline). But that $90 million figure seems to be on the very conservative side, as Box Office Theory has Gunn’s new film taking in between $140 and $185 million during its three-day domestic debut, as of this writing. Either way, it’s looking like an opening north of $100 million is all but ensured. The real question is: Just how high can this new Man of Steel fly?
If the movie opens closer to $90 million, a decent comparison might be 2017’s “Justice League” ($93.8 million opening/$661.3 million worldwide). That film had its issues, but in terms of dollars and cents, that’s in the right ballpark. On the high end, if the movie debuts closer to $180 million, Marvel’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” ($181.3 million opening/$859.2 million worldwide) could make for a good comparison, especially since that more closely mirrors pandemic era box office conditions.
Plot details for “Superman” have largely been kept under wraps, but it’s not an origin story and will feature quite a few characters from the greater DC Universe. The cast also includes Rachel Brosnahan (Lois Lane), Nicholas Hoult (Lex Luthor), Isabela Merced (Hawkgirl), Nathan Fillion (Guy Gardner), and Edi Gathegi (Mister Terrific).
