For those of you who may have had some minor concerns that conservative backlash against the quintessential American immigrant superhero Superman may have blunted its box office take, those concerns should be allayed by its Thursday night preview performance. The James Gunn film starring David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan brought in $21 million last night, which is a record for a James Gunn film.
Superman also did better in previews than A Minecraft Movie and Lilo & Stich, two films that will approach or break $1 billion worldwide before their runs are complete. Its also better preview numbers than any of the Guardians of the Galaxy films. Warner Brothers had hoped that Superman would put up $100 million over the three-day weekend. It’s beginning to look like it will do much, much better than that (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 hit $17.5 million in previews and went on to earn $118 million in its first three-day weekend).
Reviews for the film, so far, have also been terrific from both critics (82 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) and audiences (95 percent). It looks like DC, under James Gunn, is about to break its streak of box-office underperformers and nullify the bad taste many had with Zack Snyder’s iteration of the character.
At this time last week, I certainly didn’t expect a superhero movie to strike a political note, but it did, and the weekend box office is suddenly starting to feel like a weird political win.
