“Superman” Makes A Solid Debut
Posted: Friday June 30th 2006 2:16am
Source: Assorted Sources
Author: Garth Franklin

“Superman Returns” took in around $18 million on its Wednesday opening (that number doesn’t include an additional $3-4 million from early Tuesday night screenings), to make it the 11th biggest opening for a Wednesday ever.

The total stands just behind Jurassic Park III” ($19.0 million), “Men in Black II” ($18.6 million), and New Line’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” ($18.2 million). IMAX locations generated about $1.2 million of the gross – a new record for the format.

It’s the second highest Wednesday opening for a comic book film, just slightly ahead of the darker and less promoted, but critically better received “Batman Begins” in mid-June last year ($15 million Wednesday debut).

Still, it’s a long way from the record-breaker that was “Spider-Man 2” with $40.4 million on its opening Wednesday in the same release slot two years ago. In the same slot last year “War of the Worlds” snagged a tad more impressive $21.3 million haul.

With next Tuesday being the Fourth of July (essentially giving the film a full week holiday to itself), and better reviews in general, the film looks likely to match, if not beat the $121 million that “War” did in its first week.

Two big tests remain in the film’s path that will determine its future – how much the gross jumps on Friday, and how much it’ll drop against the “Pirates” sequel next weekend. Comic book films also notoriously don’t do as well internationally as they do domestically, so that front will be interesting to watch as well to see if it can break that curse.