It feels as though it's getting harder and harder for comic book movies to turn a profit in theaters. Just this year, out of the four major superhero movies released, two of them—Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts*—were significant financial disappointments. The other two—Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps—fared much better, but still arguably struggled to reach the level of success its respective studios had hoped for them.
Between the two projects, Superman's success has specifically been a topic of much disagreement, with the main debate being whether or not the movie made a profit during its theatrical run. Now, a new report states the film ended up making, and will continue to make, an impressive amount of profit for Warner Bros. Discovery. Forbes published an article that speculates on the potential routes the DCU could take.
There, the outlet stated that James Gunn's DCU feature has so far made $100 million in profit, and is well on its way to earn $150 million in all. This is somewhat similar to a previous report from Variety, which stated the film was expected to make a profit of $125 million. With that said, it was recently revealed that Superman's box office revenue was offset by Warner Bros. Discovery's traditional-TV losses.
Keep in mind, the amounts reported by Forbes in this latest article are likely not referring to theatrical profits. Instead, the numbers given are probably from ancillary markets, such as home media, merchandising, streaming and ad partnerships. To provide context for why that may be, in October, Forbes (via Comicbook.com) broke down the profitability of the project. In it, the outlet explained that ticket earnings are usually split 50-50 with theaters (it's not a precise metric, but the split is the most commonly accepted in the industry to calculate theatrical profits).
According to Variety, Superman had a production budget of $225 million and a marketing budget of $125 million, for a combined total of $350 million. The film made $616 million at the global box office. Splitting the $616 million in half results in approximately $308 million in revenue for Warner Bros. This would mean the movie fell approximately $42 million short of breaking even theatrically.
However, YouTuber Dan Murrell also broke down the earnings of the film, and estimated the movie had lost approximately $77 million in the theatrical window (box office reporting is usually not an exact science unless you're privy to the actual spending on the project). If accuate, the amounts calculated by Forbes and Murrell point to the ancillary revenue being nearly or over $200 million in revenue to be able to recoup Superman's theatrical losses and still bring in over $150 million in profit.
Now, it's important to make it clear that this information isn't meant as some sort of hit piece toward James Gunn's DCU. No, Superman was not a disastrous box office failure, but it also didn't necessarily live up to expectations in its theatrical run. Those two things can be true without Superman being some sort of enormous flop (which, again, it wasn't).
Fortunately, the movie ended up finding success after being in theaters. Hopefully, the DCU will continue on to bigger heights with future installments Supergirl (my most anticipated DCU film), Clayface and 2027's Man of Tomorrow.
Superman is available to stream on HBO Max.
What do you think about the reported profit made by Superman? Let me know in the comments!