‘Superman’ wins box office again, passes ‘Superman Returns’ total gross

It wasn’t a fluke: Superman soared back for the box office gold in its second week, signaling a great start for the newly rebranded DC Universe.

James Gunn‘s somewhat controversial new vision of the iconic do-gooder grossed $57.2 million at the domestic box office this weekend (per ComScore), far outpacing its closest competition, which included two premieres; the Gen Z update to I Know What You Did Last Summer and starry reboot of the Smurfs film franchise ranked third and fourth on the domestic charts, with $13 million and $11 million premieres, respectively. The silver medal went to Jurassic World Rebirth, which is holding strong in its third week of release, grossing $23.4 million domestically, representing a decline of 42 percent from last week.

Superman dropped 54 percent from its premiere gross of $122 million, not as close to 50 percent as DC and Warner Bros. might like it to be, but a far enough cry from 60 percent to feel comfortable. Now having accumulated $235 million at the domestic box office and $406.8 million globally, Superman has officially surpassed the lifetime gross of 2006’s Superman Returns, and has edged out Man of Steel, which at this point in its 2013 box office run had grossed $210 million domestically.

Still, the superheroic spectacle starring David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, and Nicolas Hoult has nothing on DC’s top earner, 2008’s The Dark Knight, which had earned $313.7 million domestically by this point. Nor can it quite stand up next to 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which had earned $260.4 million by the close of its second week in theaters.

After just three weeks, Jurassic World Rebirth has grossed a meaty $648 million at the global box office, and with $276 million domestically, the film is right on track with the franchise’s second-highest grosser, 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which by this point in its domestic box office run had grossed $265.7 million.

That’s great news for Universal, which is now behind No. 4 and No. 5 on the year’s best-performing titles (How to Train Your Dragon being 5 to Jurassic‘s 4). Not so great this week for Sony or Paramount, the studios behind I Know What You Did Last Summer and Smurfs, respectively. According to projections from Box Office Pro, the fourth installment in the slasher franchise pegged the middle of its domestic projection range ($10 million–$15 million), where Smurfs fell significantly below the low end of its range, $15 million.

While I Know What You Did Last Summer is all but sure to recoup its estimated $18 million production cost, it falls below the 28-year-old original film, which grossed $15.8 million in its opening weekend, and its sequel, which earned $16.5 million. Smurfs, meanwhile, grossed a whopping $24 million less than the 2011 feature franchise starter’s premiere ($35.6 million), and unlike Summer, has an estimated $58 million budget to recoup, and that’s before marketing costs.

Elsewhere on the domestic charts, Ari Aster holds on to his crown as an enduring indie hitmaker, with his COVID-era social parable Eddington, ranking No. 7 with a $4.2 million premiere gross. And that’s with an open on only 2,111 screens, compared to Superman‘s 4,275 or Smurfs‘ 3,500.

The rest of the returning cast will be familiar to anyone who keeps up with the box office: F1: The Movie, How to Train Your Dragon, Elio, and Lilo & Stitch all continue to hold strong after 4+ weeks in theaters. Globally, several international titles cracked the top 10, including Japan’s Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle (No. 4), China’s The Legend of Hei 2 (No. 7) and Curious Tales of a Temple (No. 10), and India’s Saiyaara (No. 9).

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Though Hoult’s Lex Luthor tried his darndest to stop Superman, one upcoming release may prove an even greater opponent.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps, starring Pedro Pascal, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, and Vanessa Kirby, stands poised to potentially overtake the box office throne following its July 25 release. The last entry in the super-family franchise, 2015’s Fantastic Four, flopped with a lifetime domestic gross of $56 million. So long as Molly Gordon and Logan Lerman‘s romantic dramedy Oh, Hi! and the Pete Davidson-starring thriller The Home don’t stand in the way, next week is going to be a good old fashioned Marvel vs. DC blowout at the box office.