My guess is $250 million in USA alone. $650 million world wide.
At least $300 million USA. Bryan Singer is an excellent superhero-film director, and it’s Superman. You can’t beat that name recognition.
Little over 200 million. It will lose money because it’s too campy/mickey mouse. I saw the preview and thought it was horrid. I bet they will include a sceen where he saves an old womens cat.
Any hero who’s not man enough to rescue a cat should turn in his tights. -Wally West
Superman has a certain purity of concept that resonates really well. It’ll do really well with family audiences who think that X-Men or Spider-Man are too much for their kids. In other words, it’s shooting for the same audience as The Incredibles.
Plus, it’s Superman. Everbody knows Superman.
$300M, at the very least.
I don’t know…
Haven’t we already seen this before with the Christopher Reeves versions?
I know they are old and the new one will have better special effects but can it really be that new and interesting?
I know it’s a whole different story but it still feels like a remake to me.
And big budget special effect re-makes haven’t faired too well (King Kong?)
And is it really going to be that different from an episode of Smallville or Lois & Clark?
Preview as in the whole film or just a trailer?
As you stated that you bet they will include a scene I will have to assume the later.
I’m not exactly sure what you are expecting exactly.
It’s Superman, any film that wants to make him dark broody or a rougue vigilanty type would be a horrible mistep.
If he saves a cat from a tree that’s fine because that is what I excpect him to do!
Superman is “Truth Justice and the American way”, while wearing blue and red tights and a cape. It is corny and its not ironic, and that makes it great. There is something attractive about a Hero who is just old fashioned good.
I’m a huge Batman fan and love the Dark broody flawed hero, but I have a soft spot for the man of Steel too. He represents the gods of old greek mythology. He is more powerful and more noble than the average person and that makes him so truly unique amongst those on his adopted planet.
Here is an alien raised as a farmboy in Kansas in a Norman Rockwell wet dream of a small town (I mean Smallville for crying out loud!) Grows up and moves to the big city to help people. There is no chip on his shouder, no dark past to motivate his action. He just wants to help people.
Yeah dramatically it can be a bore as he is virtually indestructable and all, but the truth is Supes is the guy you’re supposed to root for. If it is fantastic feats of power your want you go to him. You want to see a guy fly through the sun at the speed of light to stop a rogue planet from crashing into the earth by hurling it into space with his bare hands… Superman is the guy you go to.
Thank about it. Here is an icon of American mythology with a silly name that you can say in a conversation without feeling silly. I mean a super man!!! He’s a super man… it’s ridiculous until you say it right… Superman.
I’m looking forward to this film. I loved the first two Salkin films and this carries on the tradition. Yeah the world can get more cynical and ironic but not Superman. He is the connection to a more pure ideal and once and a while that ain’t so bad.
Exactly. As I get older, the idea of a perfect man from the sky who only wants to help gets more and more attractive. Also, past a certain point, broody and angsty becomes just as hackneyed and unrealistic as boy scout. There are really nice people out there, who dedicate their lives to serving others with motivations almost as pure as Superman’s.
But, I do think Superman does have some tragedy behind him. He was orphaned. Twice, in some comic versions. But that gives him some humility. Even Superman can’t fix everything. He isn’t driven by his personal tragedy, like Batman is, but it is there, somewhere in the background.
Twenty-five years ago. Now there’s a whole new audience out there. And storywise, it’s really a new chapter in the saga, almost a sequel but not a remake.
Who cares? How good it is doesn’t matter to answer the OP’s question. All big grossing movies are dependent solely on buzz, the anticipation that builds up in the months before its release, that whets the appetite of the audience until their desires explode in an orgiastic paroxysm on opening weekend.
I went to see the most recent Harry Potter right after it opened this last winter. The theater was packed. 800 or so people, some of them in costume. The last trailer shown was the Superman Returns preview trailer . . . and the audience erupted. They just went crazy at the first appearance of the iconic costume.
I’d say there’s a bit of buildup there.
King Kong isn’t one-tenth the draw that Superman is.
Yes, it will have bigger explosions.
(Seriously: TV shows =/= movies. Spider Man I and II weren’t hurt by the cheesy 60’s-era animated show, nor by the short-lived late-70’s live version. *Lois and Clark[/] was cancelled years ago. Smallville is about a teenaged Superman, in Smallville; if it has any impact on the movie’s BO, it would be as an advertisement.)
I predict: Box office champ of the summer. $320 million.
I don’t think it will flop, but I certainly don’t see it being the blockbuster of the summer. It’ll do okay, then be forgotten.
I’m basing this on:
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lack of buzz. I have not heard one single person IRL mention this movie at all. Though the blogs keep bringing up the “Superman is gay!” angle, there’s not a big sense of anticipation for this.
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No big name draw. I love some Kevin Spacey, and usually enjoy him in whatever he’s in. But he’s not an actor that people will go out of their way to watch. (“Ooooh! A new Kevin Spacey film! I’ll be there opening day!”? No.) I think it was a good idea to go with an unknown for Superman, and I think Brandon whatever has the perfect look for it, but you should have big box-office draw villian or at least a well-known hot chick to round it out.
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Superman saturation. Between Smallville and Lois and Clark, anyone who has wanted a Superman fix has been able to get it. Not like Spidey or Batman.
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Budget. The budget is estimated at over $260 million. It will have to make twice that to break even. I don’t mcuh more than that happening with this movie. I don’t know if I even see that much happening.
Now, I could be completely wrong, and don’t claim any sort of expertise here. I just see it going the “Mission: Impossible III” route instead of the “X-Men: Last Stand” way.
He dresses as a swan and rapes women, you mean? Greek gods may have been powerful, but noble they were not: you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of one, or even be the favourite of another who was having a tiff with your sponsor, lest you be smote but good.
Well, the original Christopher Reeve version had that scene, except it was a little girl’s cat.
Hopefully this version will spare us the follow-up shot, when the girl runs inside and you can hear her tell her mother what happened, only to hear the mother say “What have I told you about lying! ::slap::” Yikes.
The top 3 most recognizable superheroes are Superman, Batman and Spider-Man, in that order. So, let’s compare the domestic gross for the films based on them recently:
Domestic Gross
Batman Begins - $200 million
Spider-Man - $400 million
Spider-Man II - $370 million
If I were guessing, I’d say $400 million is out of range, but I could see it getting to $300 million. Maybe $350 million depending on what opens against the Big Blue Boy Scout.
No, they decided not to use John Byrne’s script.
Wait…what?
Lois and Clark was canceled almost a decade ago, and hasn’t been seen since. If you’re going to argue (inexplicably) that a canceled TV series is going to be ‘saturation’, the Superman animated series (which lasted to 2000, and spun off the Justice League series) would be a better fit.
Of course, if Smallville, Justice League, and 3 separate comic book titles haven’t killed eachother’s marketability, throwing the movie into the mix isn’t going to push it over the edge.
Ironically, it probably has to gross around $400 million just to break even. The budget was reportedly $200 million, and over the full run, the theaters’ take averages about 50% (although much less if it is pushed off screens in less than a month or two). And the studio probably spent another $50-100 million on marketing it.
So it could gross hundreds of millions and still lose money.
By comparison, The Blair Witch Project cost $35,000, and grossed $250 million.
Dang… ok not the gods… how about the heroes? The Olympian ideal? Thanks… way to kill a point by pointing out a flaw in my allusion.
No movie makes a profit at the box office any more, especially not the U.S. box office. The initail theater run is there to cover some of the expenses and to push DVD sales.
Am I the only one who has seen the literally 8 ka-zillion marketing promotions that are tied to this movie?
Lose money, my ass. I bet with all the fast food, cereal box and other affiliated gear it’s profitable already. Much less the domestic and overseas theatrical take.
Toss in DVD sales in a few months and we’re talking some serious bucks.
I think in the end it will make money, although it may do like The Hulk and drop off precipitously in its second week. I know I’m not interested in seeing it, however.