Box Office Tracking & Forecasts: Will SUPERMAN ($154M-175M+) Soar to 2025’s Best Opening, Potential Milestones for DC and James Gunn?

This report also appears in Box Office Theory’s Substack newsletter.

Key Tracking Factors & Rationale:

• James Gunn’s Superman is positioned as one of this summer’s marquee tentpoles with a mid-July date that’s housed multiple franchise mega-performers in recent years.
  • The DC brand, and comic book films at large, have seen diminished returns in the post-Avengers: Endgame world outside the occasional event-level performer at the box office. Audience selectivity and fan demand are at an all-time high in the broader realm of superhero and comic films.
  • Superman, in particular, has been a character with an image that’s been challenging for many filmmakers, writers, and creatives to make relevant for 21st century pop entertainment.
  • In December, the first full trailer become the most viewed in Warner Bros. and DC history with a reported 250 million-plus views.
  • Early sentiment and traffic across multiple social channels are demonstrably strong. Gunn himself has, naturally, been an interactive advocate for the film and his oversight of DC Studios, rebooting the entire comic universe for Warner Bros. and igniting enthusiasm for a new vision of key characters.
  • For Superman, specifically, the writer/director’s emphasis on character-driven themes of compassion could resonate in a unique way with today’s escapism-seeking culture and, crucially, a younger audience that is due for fresh exposure to and renewed interest in the character.
  • Competition will be somewhat notable but far from overpowering, opening nine days after Jurassic World Rebirth, which is tracking to be successful in its own right but still the lowest performer of the franchise since its 2015 revival. That film should have burned off enough upfront demand to be of minor consequence.
  • Similarly, Fantastic Four: First Steps opens two weeks after Superman. While it will cut into the film’s IMAX and premium screen footprint, both can co-exist if word of mouth is strong enough going into the back end of a summer that lacks many more tentpoles with direct audience crossover.
  • Ticket pre-sales have yet to begin, but they’ll be an integral part of mid-to-late tracking when they do.
• In other tracking news:
  • Elio opened with relatively soft pre-sales this week. In fairness, Lilo & Stitch is dominating attention (as well as Dragon) among similar demographics, but we’re leaning slightly more conservative on the original Pixar film for the moment.
  • Conversely, F1: The Movie continues living up to our earlier models, enough so to justify raising our floor and ceiling of projected performance.
    • Pre-sales in exhibitor samples are pacing ahead of Jurassic World Rebirth, which opens five days later, though that pace is not necessarily expected to hold indefinitely as the Jurassic franchise is famously back-loaded and walk-up friendly.
    • Still, F1 is shaping up to be a top-tier premium screen performer and has only benefited from recent exposure of its newest trailer in front of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning during an all-time record Memorial Day frame.
  • M3GAN 2.0 posted a respectable first day of pre-sales in exhibitor samples, though it is skewing significantly more front-loaded than last June’s fellow PG-13 genre franchise pic, A Quiet Place: Day One.
    • Notably, with a Fandango BOGO promotion in play, early ticket sales comparisons may be skewed for those keeping track.
    • Social media outlooks continue trending behind that of the first M3GAN, but recent box office over-performances in the market and this sequel’s nature as the first teen-friendly “horror” film to open this summer constitute enough reason to raise forecasts slightly until closer to release.
    • That said, we still expect diminished casual audience appeal relative to the first film’s breakout run, so these models remain volatile.

6-Week Box Office Calendar, Tracking & Forecasts
as of 5/29/25
(best viewed in Desktop mode; full chart available in the Box Office Theory newsletter on Substack)

All forecasts and tracking ranges above are reflective only of how the films are trending or expected to trend ahead of release. They are not final forecasts or predictions and are subject to revision at any time based on evolving market conditions and various circumstances that are factored into our modeling.