Superman Through the Ages! Forum

From Today's Variety (7/3/06)

"Superman Returns" grossed a solid but unspectacular $52.1 million for the weekend, bringing the cume since its Wednesday opening to $84.2 million. "Prada," meanwhile, proved very effective counter-programming, taking $27 million.

Warner Bros.' super-hero tentpole made a little more than its last re-start of a comic book franchise, "Batman Begins," which grossed $72.9 million its opening Wednesday through Sunday, but far behind "War of the Worlds," last year's July 4 opener, which WB was aiming to match.

Par's Tom Cruise starrer took in $100.6 million by the Sunday before July 4 after opening the previous Wednesday. "Superman" virtually matched "Worlds" on its opening day, taking in $21 million, but has been significantly behind every day since, indicating softer interest beyond the core fans who first came out or, potentially even more worrisome for Warner Bros., worse word of mouth.

Movie budgets are so strange these days now that producers are so concerned about blockbusters...it seems that Supes is comparable in Box Office to Batman Begins but far behind Spiderman 2, but at the same time all the costs of early concepts etc, that are scrapped over the years are rolled into the total film cost -- but along with all of this, people paying to see the movie is shrinking compared to DVD purchases...

Only Superman could make almost 90 million bucks and be considered a failure... :)

That's kind of like U2's album 'Pop' which sold 7 million copies and Bono was complaining about how it didn't do very well. If nothing else, WB will make back the money that Jon Peters wasted through merchandising, when the DVDs and DVD sets come out later this year.

Kind of a similar thing to "King Kong"...these movies do make up their costs and much more, it just seems that movies in the 200 million range (often because they have been thought over many years and have lots of pre-production costs) are set up as failures these days...

Here is a good site for tracking box office numbers:

http://www.the-numbers.com/charts/thisweek.html

By clicking on 'Superman Returns,' you can see more detailed info on the movie's progress. A couple of interesting notes:

1) There are no worldwide totals for this movie yet. The $84.2 million is US only.

2) The $84.2 million also does not include the $17-25 million that FX is paying for cable TV rights in the U.S., which puts this film at about half of its production budget already, well over $100 million.

3) It also doesn't include merchandising, like Superman Returns remote-controlled flying Brandon Rouths, or Superman Returns cans of Pepsi.

So Superman Returns has, in one week, eliminated most of its production budget of $209 million... in the US only. That number may not include several Jon Peters screwups, but still..we're going to have a sequel.

[add. note] Check out the genre categories that Superman Returns has been placed in. For the 'Friendly Alien on Earth' category, E.T. made almost $12 million on its opening weekend, and 'Close Encounters' made $6 million.

For the DC Comics category, Superman: The Movie had a $7.5 million opening weekend. Superman Returns has the largest opening of any DC Comics movie ever, curiously except for 'Batman Forever,' which also made $52 million its opening weekend.

For 'Visual Effects' films, it had a bigger opening on July 4th weekend than...Independence Day!

Superhero films that did not meet their budget? Catwoman, Elektra, Steel, and the Powerpuff Girls. Somehow I think that Superman Returns is not in the same league as these movies.

Don't you be messin' with Townsville's finest!  The Powerpuff Girls was a decent movie and, AFAICT, it met its budget.

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0289408/business

Ah. I love Box Office totals and what have you. It's almost as great as Sports Scores.

Though I doubt SUPERMAN RETURNS will be able to outdo what shapes up to be the biggest box office event of the Summer: SNAKES ON A PLANE.

It's opening in August...but that's too long to wait!

Well if Superman Returns didn't make as much money as "War of the Worlds" then WOTW must be a superior film, right?

Great films always make more money.  That's why "Titanic" is the greatest film of all time. :roll:

Proud to be corrected, because I've always loved the Powerpuff Girls. (This is going to sound less and less heterosexual as I go on.) I first saw it when I was BABYSITTING my teacher's kid, and she was watching cartoons. I thought the show was FABULOUS! When the movie came out, I excitedly went to see it with my SEVERAL MALE ROOMMATES, and we were some of the only unsupervised adults in the theater.

Hey the Power Puff Girls rock - and I have no excuse at all. An evil turban wearing supervillian monkey named Mojo JoJo VS 3 Super-girls - whats NOT to love?

I like the PPGs as well.

Anyone notice how much Mojo's origin story and motivations mirror that of the Silver Age Luthor's? (Both had cranium-altering lab accidents, both of them wrongfully blame someone else [Superboy/Man, the Powerpuff Girls] for their unfortunate plight in life/for being overlooked in favor of the flashy heroes, etc.)

According to TMZ. com, if Returns doesn't make $200 million by summer's end, WB's pulling the plug on any possible sequels. And even if the movie hits $200 million, WB is said to be planning a strict $150 million budget for any sequel project, as opposed to the $200 million spent to shoot this film (and the nearly $100 million overhead caused by the Jon Peters.Tim Burton. JJ Abrams/ McG/Brett Ratner attempts).

Total grosses as of July 9, 2006
Domestic:     $141,642,667       79.8%
+ Foreign:     $35,800,000       20.2%
= Worldwide:     $177,442,667

With the foreign release, this film is easily going to do 200 million, probably closer to 600 million by the end of the Summer...

I suspect that Superman Returns will do a lot of damage in the global box office - and probably do really well against Pirates as well in that arena.  We'll have to see but apparently the movie did extremely well in areas internationally (that weren't affected by the World Cup).  Suprisingly well and record breaking in those.

I was also making a point to another poster in another board regarding his "box office predictions" and sequels.

Many of us might remember the big hype surrounding Godzilla in 1998.  That movie did less than it's budget (it was the most expensive movie at the time to make) - but get this... it grossed internationally over $350mil.  That ain't no bad apples - and really it could be considered a successful flick in its own right.

But - it was popular opinion that killed the film here in the US.

So - I believe the $600Mil prediction is pretty solid on what little data I have on how well it's done in the International market - but really I don't think we are in any danger of not seeing a sequel.  The Superman franchise is "the" superhero franchise - and just bringing a sequel like Superman Returns to the theatre is really breaking new ground, particularly in the aspect of deleting two films from the franchise basically - and picking up many, many years after the fact of the 1st two.  I expected a mixed reaction to this idea, but I believe it's solid enough to warrant another continuation rather than a reboot.

Honestly, I also believe money is a hell of a lot tighter this year than last as well - so people are gonna fire at the better word of mouth than the mixed word of mouth.  Taking my kids, wife and I - we spent quite a little bit of money to see it, and we'll wait on Pirates to come on DVD to see that.  Movie going has been out of my monthly budget for quite some time.

I'm basing 600 million on around what "King Kong" did, and that was dissappointing to many that expected more...foreign release on "Superman Returns" is delayed in many countries and usually comes in big for these kinds of movies, and let's face it, DVD sales are going to be big bread and butter money too...I see little chance that this is going to be any kind of real "failure" and that a sequel won't be made.

Hey as much as I was displeased by this, Im hoping the inevitable sequel will be better devoid of pre-production baggage and warmed over 'homage'.

Absolutely, and not just sales of Superman Returns.  The movie will also help DVD sales of the Christopher Reeve movies, the Adventures of Superman, the cartoons, etc.  So it'll all add up to some very big Super bucks for WB.

:s:

I still consider your points very valid.

Well - again I really think we are in a whole different type of market anymore.  Sure, lots of guys can gripe and complain that the movie didn't do "Lord of the Rings", "Star Wars" or even Spiderman type numbers.  I see a lot of disappointment in the percieved convoluted messages of the film - which is not hard for me to see.

I'm afraid that the real movie that could have been (for me) is still laying on the cutting room floor.  From what little bits and pieces I can see, so much of the plots of the movie were further developed and more complete.  Of course the running time would have pushed over 3 hours if they remained.

Ultimately, I sincerely doubt we are in any actual danger of not getting a sequel.

Now that the World Cup is over, a lot more people will finally get around to watching Superman.

latest numbers:
Domestic:      $144,297,955        80.1%
+ Foreign:     $35,800,000       19.9%
= Worldwide:     $180,097,955

I hope we get a sequel, but please no more homages to Donner and Reeve. I loved the first two Superman movies, but we need something new for this series, something closer in spirit to the comics, or even to the recent animated adventures. That may require a different director, but I would hope that Singer knows more about Superman lore than just what he gleaned from Superman I & II and can do something with Brainiac, Darkseid, or some other villain besides Luthor.

Domestic Gross for Superman Returns is now up to $163,648,000.

Latest as of Friday...

Domestic:      $172,872,000        69.2%
+ Foreign:     $77,000,000       30.8%
= Worldwide:     $249,872,000

YES!

bring on 'The Next Superman' and the new 'Supergirl'

One month later...

Total US Gross..............$180,245,955
Production Budget.........$204,000,000
Worldwide Gross...........$290,245,955

Plus $17 million from FX for Cable TV rights.

This makes the pre-DVD take of Superman Returns $307,245,955 (merchandising not included)

http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2006/SPRMN.php

Amazing, even after all the restarts and all the millions spent on nothing, it still managed to make lots of money. That's the power of Superman.

That said, it wasn't an Ultra mega hit, and it couldn't be due to the huge pre-post cost.

Now Pirates is a true Ultra Mega Hit:

Domestic:      $330,424,411        60.7%
+ Foreign:     $214,097,000       39.3%
= Worldwide:     $544,521,411    

Crazy.

 I hope this prompts Warner & DC to do a full-on restart of the franchise. New storyline, disregarding "Superman Returns", a complete recasting & a new director. I enjoyed Superman 1 & 2, but feel they should NOT have been used as a springboard for this film. I didn't really want to see a rehash of most of the plot of Superman 1, with added unneeded baggage like "Superman's illegitimate son". Leave the Donner films ALONE, people...

 OK, let me rethink that "complete recasting" bit... I think Spacey could have done a MUCH better Luthor if he hadn't been tied into the plot points of the Hackman Luthor. That said, I think Luthor needs to be left out of the next 2 Superman flicks... he's been overused. Luthor needs to be in every Superman film just as much as the Joker should be in every Batman film.

 Brandon Routh, on the other hand.... I never once saw him as "Superman" or "Clark Kent" in the film... he always came off as "Christopher Reeve Impersonator." Lose him.

Two weeks later, the worldwide gross is $339,094,159 (+ 17 million from FX = $356 million), and it hasn't opened in Germany or Japan yet.

One has to admit that Johnny Depp is box-office gold. And the Pirates movies are just great fun.

I've been re-reading Superman: Last Son of Krypton (for the umpteenth time). As I was reading the part where Old-Timer meets Towbee, I began to imagine Johnny Depp doing an over-the-top portrayal of the space minstrel. Such casting could result in a Super Ultra Mega Hit. Ah, but I suppose that's just a pipe dream. But it would be great to see Maggin's novel updated and translated to the silver screen.

Current worldwide gross:  $368,476,617

Random ugly thought:  Joel Schumacher probably made more off Superman Returns than Siegel and Shuster made off of Superman.

Between worldwide revenues and the FX deal, Superman Returns has cracked $400 million.

roll on the next one!

http://www.the-numbers.com/interactive/newsStory.php?newsID=2163