A little after the crack of dawn, we gave you some early box office numbers for Man of Steel and how it performed with its debut Thursday night.
While I made the prediction with my box office report on Monday that I wanted Man of Steel to gross $142+ million if only to push the Twilight movies further down the best-opening weekend ever list, Deadline is reporting that the figure may be in $120M range. But that will depend on how far it drops off from Saturday to Sunday (aka Father’s Day). Even if you debate its $21 million Thursday earnings, in which $12 million came from Thursday night 7 PM showings in conjunction with Wal-Mart pre-sold tickets, the tickets were still bought. Just like a sporting event that sells out despite there being noticeable seats vacant. Sold is sold.
Even if Man of Steel doesn’t surpass Iron Man 3‘s massive $174.1M opening weekend from early May, it will join The Hunger Games and The Avengers as the most successful film opening that isn’t a sequel. I almost excluded The Avengers due to it being a culmination of movies, which includes characters seen previously. But since there’s going to be a sequel in a few years, it still counts as a non-sequel.
In terms of locations, Man of Steel is playing at 4,207 theaters. That figure makes it the second-widest release ever for a non-sequel. (The Avengers is no. 1 with 4,349 locations.) Surprisingly, Warner Bros is gung-ho with making people pay premium prices to see it in 3D. Only 850 theaters are 2D only; the remaining venues will play in 3D with a 2D component.
Overseas, the film is already shattering records. Opening in Taiwan on Wednesday it grossed an impressive NT$23,773,310 ($794,742) nationwide for the all-time highest opening day for any Warner Bros film. The Philippines opened the film on its Independence Day, also Wednesday, to record results. The film became the biggest opening day ever with P69,284,858 ($1,657,532) comprising 347,626 admissions from 466 screens nationwide, making MoS #1 with over 90% market share.
On Friday, Superman opened in 24 international markets day and date with North America, including 3 Top Ten countries: UK, Korea, and Mexico. Warner Bros will launch an additional 26 markets on the second weekend, including China, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Spain. Ultimately, the film will be on more than 21,000 screens abroad.
Look for another full Man of Steel review to match my very own critique (which you can read here). Until then, here’s Scott’s instant Facebook feedback upon seeing it earlier today.
