James Gunn’s Superman is in its third week at the box office and it’s performing significantly worse than Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel through the same time period.
In its first 18 days at the box office, Gunn’s Superman has only grossed $292.4 million at the domestic office. In comparison, Snyder’s Man of Steel did $251.6 million. However, that does not factor in inflation. If you factor in inflation, Man of Steel’s domestic gross through 18 days comes to $350 million. That means that Man of Steel has outgrossed Superman by nearly $60 million at the domestic box office.
Additionally, when you look at the daily comparisons, Snyder’s Man of Steel had longer legs. The last time Gunn’s Superman had a higher daily gross was last Wednesday when it brought in $6.6 million compared to Man of Steel’s $5.7 million. However, since then Man of Steel has outpaced Superman every single day.
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Internationally, Superman appears to be pacing behind Man of Steel as well. Man of Steel went on to gross $376.9 million internationally in 2013. That’s around $521.9 when adjusted for inflation. In comparison, Gunn’s Superman has only grossed $214.1 million internationally. After two complete weeks it’s still nearly 60% behind Man of Steel’s total international gross.
Not only does it look like Superman will end up performing worse than Man of Steel, but it’s likely the film will lose a lot of money by itself. The State of Ohio reported back in August 2024 that the film had a production budget of $363.8 million. That means the film would need to gross upwards of $1.091 billion just to break even. It’s nowhere close to that number having only grossed $503.5 million.
Gunn denied the report and a subsequent report from TheWrap indicated the film’s budget was $225 million, which still means it would need to gross around $675 million to break even. Following that report, Gunn told GQ the movie did not need to gross $700 million, “his is not the riskiest endeavor in the world. Is there something riding on it? Yeah, but it’s not as big as people make it out to be. They hear these numbers that the movie’s only going to be successful if it makes 700 million or something and it’s just complete and utter nonsense. It doesn’t need to be as big of a situation as people are saying.”
However, a new rumor from Matt McGloin at Cosmic Book News backs the original report from Ohio. He notes that an insider informed him that Gunn’s Superman had a budget over $350 million.
What do you make of Superman’s poor performance at the box office?
Not surprised, Super Betaman just does not have the same appeal.