SR BOX OFFICE

[Klar Ken T5477]

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.

[MatterEaterLad]

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...

[Gangbuster]

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.

[MatterEaterLad]

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...

[Gangbuster]

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.

[Uncle Mxy]

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

[JulianPerez]

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!

[nightwing]

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: