Superman opens this week, and the box office opening estimates are all over the place, just like the reactions and reviews.
Saturday afternoon update: Estimates are offering a $115–$121 million opening, maybe lower.
Monday night saw the Red Carpet Premiere, which was followed Tuesday night with the early Amazon screenings, which I managed to attend. You can read my review here. I like the movie.
What are the opening box office estimates?
Via Deadline and THR, Superman is currently tracking anywhere to open to $100 million to $130 million. THR adds that tracking was as high as $135M at one point, but has been lowered to that $130M number. Back in June, estimates were also as low as $90M.
It’s also learned that presales are at $20M, which is ahead of Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 that opened to $118.4M.
However, the presales are lower than Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which opened to $106.1M.
Well, that actually proves presales don’t matter, as we see GOTG 3 opened bigger while having fewer presales, so that means word-of-mouth is likely a larger factor.
Since GOTG 3 was a good movie, more people turned out during the opening weekend. Likewise, Quantumania sucked, so fewer people showed up once the reactions hit the net.
So what does that mean for Superman?
Its Rotten Tomatoes Score is currently at 86%, and at one time was as high as 91%. Guardians of the Galaxy 3 actually has a lower score at 82% (Quantumania is at 46%). The Audience score isn’t yet available, but bear in mind, when it first goes live, it will be full of ratings and reviews from those diehard fans that went to early screenings, so likely the fan score will be heavier on the positive side.
And it will be the fans who will determine if Superman sinks or swims. The online reactions following the Amazon premiere are pretty interesting and line up with that first report we posted where it was said fans will either love it or hate it.
Which side are you on? Let us know in the comments below when you see it.
Superman officially opens July 11
Superman has international screenings that kick off Wednesday, July 9th. Domestically, there are the Thursday previews on July 10, and the flick goes wide Friday.
