Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
June 18, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Jay Barney: Regardless of how big the numbers are, it is all good news for Warner Brothers. I don’t think calling it a $129 million four-day take or a $117 million over three days matters one bit. Sure, outpacing Toy Story 3 means something, but old records are being beaten all the time nowadays. The real news is how big of an opening this is and what it means for future of the DC universe.
Such an impressive launch insures that Warner Bros can march forward with their plans to market their own characters the way that Marvel has done going all the way back to Spiderman. They will have some work to do, as some of those characters are not as recognizable as the Marvel ones, but they are over the first hurdle at this point. With this sort of mega opening, the foundation has been established.
I am really interested to see what happens next weekend. Superman has had such a huge start, it will be interesting to see if it has positioned itself for a strong second weekend. The competition is going to be fierce with Monsters University and World War Z opening. You have to love the summer box office.
Bruce Hall: Warner Bros needed this one, didn't they? And as was alluded to above, the final numbers are almost academic because the most important thing is that the success of Man of Steel ensures that whatever plans exist for the future DC Comics universe can move forward, guaranteeing at least ten more solid years of superhero tentpoles. If the words "superhero fatigue" have ever passed your lips, I must warn you - it hasn't even begun.
Shalimar Sahota: Staggering. I was a little doubtful that it would cross the $100 million mark. I imagine everyone knew that Warners had a lot riding on this and they've been marketing the hell out it (a week before the film opened, one commercial break was simply taken up with the latest trailer for the film). After the disappointment of Sucker Punch, Zack Snyder also really needed a hit and having Christopher Nolan involved as a producer most likely helped reassure the diehard fans to at least check this out. I think part of this success can also be attributed to Marvel Studios. Since Iron Man they've managed to set the bar pretty high, giving Warners and DC something to attain to.
Reagen Sulewski: I don't read much into breaking monthly records, since those are quite situational, but regardless of that fact, this is a more than adequate start for WB. I had my doubts that the public was ready to embrace Superman again, but the huge amount of emphasis they put on Chris Nolan's involvement is to me the key factor. I don't think that's particularly surprising to anyone, since we're much more into the era where directors and producers can make or break a project. What's interesting to me is that the scattershot technique of ads actually works - generally this results in a confused marketplace. If I could find a common theme among them, it was that the stakes were being raised in this story. Although this was essentially using the same plot as the new Star Trek sequel (and in retrospect, the coy game Paramount played with Cumberbatch's identity seems like a colossal mistake), they were able to make it look like the plot of this film *mattered*, and that we were going to set to see Superman super-fight. That's all people wanted, apparently.
Max Braden: I would not have been surprised at $80 million. The trailer just didn't sell to me - no remarkable central actors, not the kind of ensemble that makes up Avengers or X-Men or even Batman, and nothing to indicate that it was going to be less somber and boring than Superman Returns, which had only taken in $84 million from the Tuesday it opened to the Sunday before July 4th in 2006. Superman is always going to be a summer tentpole franchise, but I did not have great expectations for it. Considering all that, I think this is a great start.
Kim Hollis: I'm with Max, here. I could have easily believed that projections for The Man of Steel were extremely over-exuberant, but I accept that some of that may have been my anti-Superman bias creeping in. This is a better result than I was expecting, and considering that the marketing was all over the place as Reagen mentioned, probably more than was deserved. I'm surprised that such a grim and somber looking Superman resonated as much as it did on opening weekend. With that said, I'm not really convinced of Superman's staying power just yet. Reviews are middling at best and a lot of the comments I've heard have been along the lines of "it's good but not great." I do believe that Christopher Nolan's name meant something here even though he was producing rather than directing. It's a big step forward for Warner Bros., but I think optimism should be very cautious until we see whether demand wasn't filled during opening weekend.
David Mumpower: Everything about the release of Man of Steel is sleazy. Warner Bros. has effectively delivered a loss leader disguised as a major motion picture. The Thursday sneaks represent half a million Blu-Rays that will be manufactured for no profit, the same ones that would have been sold to those consumers most passionate about Superman. While $12 million of that has been removed from the weekend total, there is no way to know for sure how much of the monies during that time frame were held from the novel sales strategy.
The weekend total of $128.7 million is undeniably strong, albeit it with more caveats than are being mentioned thus far. Superman Returns, a movie we know was not good enough to justify further sequels, grossed $108.1 million during its first week in theaters. Before people bust me for not doing a one to one comparison, I want to remind our readers that its release occurred over the July 4th time frame. There was unusual holiday behavior that led to a great total upfront. In 2013 box office terms, it grossed roughly $135 million during the holiday. I state this fact primarily to point out that we have seen this behavior before.
What Man of Steel must avoid is the flameout experienced by Bryan Singer's outing. Superman Returns grossed over half of its total domestic revenue during its first seven days in theaters. I do not expect Man of Steel to fall victim to the same fate. On the other hand, I am not confident Man of Steel grosses $300 million domestically. To this moment, I remain concerned over the quality of the title. Yes, I know about the A- Cinemascore, but I also know that Superman Returns garnered a B+. And reviews were similar for both Superman films. I worry that Man of Steel is too grim to be heartily endorsed with regards to word-of-mouth. This perspective is enhanced by the fact that nobody I know has done more than said "it's better than the last one".
The good news for Warner Bros. is that Superman has always been popular abroad. I will be surprised if the movie grosses less than $750 million worldwide. That makes Man of Steel likely to turn a profit, which is key after all of the other recent non-Batman disasters involving the DC Universe.