James Gunn's Superman is off to a flying start at the box office, earning over $406 million globally within its first two weeks. Although its $125 million domestic opening came in on the lower end of early projections, strong word-of-mouth and positive reviews have given the film impressive momentum.
With a solid $57.3 million haul in its second weekend, the DCU’s first official entry is holding steady and appears well on track to turn a healthy profit. The film’s performance is shaping up to be a promising launchpad for James Gunn’s new vision for the DC Universe.
Diving into the numbers further, calculating a film’s break-even point, a common industry rule is that it needs to earn roughly twice its combined production and marketing budget at the box office.
This is due to the fact that studios generally keep only about 50% of box office revenue, with the other half going to theater chains. As a result, hitting that two-times benchmark is often essential for a film to turn a profit.
While James Gunn stated that Warner Bros. would be happy with just a $500 million global finish, traditional box office math states that with a $225 million production budget and $100 million marketing budget, its traditional break-even point would be $650 million.
Thankfully, the film now appears to be headed for the above target number, according to several leading box office analysts.
Diving into the numbers even further, let's look at some recent tentpoles that have finished roughly close to where Superman is projected to finish and see how they fared after weekend #2.
By examining how those titles performed by the end of their second weekend, we can get a better sense of how Superman stacks up and where it might ultimately land in its theatrical run:
- After its second weekend of release, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (released May 5, 2023) had a global box office total of approximately $530.9 million. [finished its theatrical run with $845,555,777 worldwide]
- After its second weekend of release (ending March 13, 2022), "The Batman" had amassed a global box office total of approximately $463.2 million [$772,319,315 worldwide] -
- After its second weekend of release (November 22, 2024), the film "Wicked" had a gloabal box office total of approximately $455 million [$756,233,202 worldwide]
- After its second weekend of release, Superman (July 8, 2025) "Superman" has grossed $406.8 million worldwide [estimated for $640 - $700 million global finish]
- After its second weekend of release (June 02, 2023), "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" had achieved a global box office total of $390 million [$690,824,738 worldwide]
- After its second weekend of release (March 4, 2024), "Dune: Part Two" had a global box office total of approximately $367.5 million [$714,844,358 worldwide].
To shape the Superman box office debate with some useful context, is tracking ahead of titles like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Dune: Part Two, but currently trailing behind major hits such as Wicked, The Batman, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
Superman is currently showing a 57% domestic and 43% international box office split. However, industry analysts anticipate that the final numbers will lean even more heavily toward domestic earnings, roughly a 60/40 split by the time the film ends its theatrical run.
Conversely, the two films it is currently outgrossing, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Dune: Part Two, have a respective 55/45 and 40/60 domestic/international box office split.
It's Superman's lower international performance that has analysts predicting a lower global tally for the film than what Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Dune: Part Two amassed, despite the fact that Superman is currently outperforming both films at the same juncture.