Finally, after more than two years of waiting, James Gunna’s Superman finally (superhero) landed in theatres last Friday, receiving solid reviews from critics with a score of 83% on Rotten Tomatoes, with an even stronger audience score of 93% on the same site, while it boasts an equally impressive 7.7 on IMDb. Although fans, by and large, get the Superman movie they so desperately craved, not to mention the type of auspicious start necessary for launching a newly rebooted DC Universe, the box office numbers matter just as much if Warner Bros. are to continue bankrolling future projects, but thankfully, Superman has had a very strong opening weekend.
Superman finished the weekend with $122 million at the domestic box office (which includes Canada), marking the third-largest debut of 2025 after A Minecraft Movie ($162 million) and Lil & Stitch ($146 million), while it hauled in an additional $95 million from international markets, putting its current global box office at $217 million. The international gross was admittedly below the studio’s projections, but this is not entirely surprising either since Superman is a quintessentially American character expected to resonate best with U.S. audiences.
Although Superman dominated this past weekend, even when pitted against another strong box office performer like Jurassic Park: Rebirth, the James Gunn feature isn’t a bona fide success just yet. For a movie of Superman’s scale, which cost $225 million to produce (and this doesn’t even include marketing costs that are likely close to the $100 million mark), its second weekend will prove just as crucial to its overall financial success.
Take, for example, 2023 Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which took in a solid $105 million domestically on its opening weekend, but then in its second weekend the movie only took in $32 million, which is a whopping 69% drop, ending it’s theatrical run as a box office failure that also has the dubious honour of being one of the few MCU productions to fail to break even. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is considered one of the weaker entries in the entire MCU, and word-of-mouth undoubtedly played a major role in its failure. Nonetheless, the aforementioned strong response from audiences and critics alike bode well for Superman’s – and the DCU’s – overall success moving forward.
That is not to say that Superman is without controversy, as James Gunn recently drew the ire of conservative commentators after saying his movie is “the story of America”, in that it is “about an immigrant that came from other places.” This led to a flurry of conversative voices labelling Gunn’s Superman as “woke” …even though they hadn’t even seen it yet! Suffice to say, this utterly ridiculous rhetoric is intended as a dog whistle to the all-too-easily riled up MAGA crowd, as Gunn’s movie is not an overt political statement, but rather, in his own words, it’s about “the basic kindness of human beings”, which shouldn’t be at all controversial – not to mention Superman’s an alien, so he is an immigrant by definition – yet here we are.
Canadian actor Nathan Fillion had his own response to the wildly overblown conservative uproar over Gunn’s comments at Superman’s Los Angeles premiere, plainly telling Variety, after a good chuckle, “It’s just a movie guys. It’s just a movie.” Of course, Fillion is no stranger to brushing off asinine criticism, as he also previously responded to criticism of his character Guy Gardner’s intentionally bad blonde bowl cut, even though the look is faithful to this Green Lantern’s infamous comic book appearance, saying that it is “integral to the character,” and to depict him without it “would be a disservice.”
But I digress, as all this begs the question as to whether or not the controversy generated by conservative circles will impact Superman’s box office hopes. Hardly, I say! While it might shave a little off the movie’s bottom line, its success moving forward now largely comes down to how much it resonates with audiences, which seems to be the case so far, meaning that everything is currently pointing in a positive direction for Superman, James Gunn, Warner Bros., and the newly rebooted DCU.
