‘Superman’ is a hit. But DC’s work is far from over

DC’s comic book movie universe needed a savior, and “Superman” delivered.

The $125-million domestic box office opening for the new movie, written and directed by James Gunn and starring David Corenswet in the title role, hit its target and set up a potentially lucrative future for the DC Studios strategy long in the making from Gunn and his co-chief Peter Safran.

With a $225-million production budget, not counting marketing costs and a softer-than-expected international tally ($95 million from outside the U.S. and Canada), the movie has a ways to go before it’s profitable. But importantly, the DC gang managed to make a superhero movie that fans actually enjoyed, in contrast to previous efforts including “The Flash” and “Shazam! Fury of the Gods.”

With “Superman” now a hit, 2025 is looking more promising as a reset year for the superhero genre as studios try to figure out the right mix and number of tights-wearing tough guys to put in theaters each year.

In the last couple of years, studios fielded a slew of low-to-mid-quality superhero films that raised concerns about a simple problem for what had long been Hollywood’s most important genre: There were too many of the same kind of movies, and they weren’t good enough. With all that happening at once, superhero fatigue was inevitable.

With rare exceptions, 2024 became a dumping ground as DC regrouped following its executive shakeup, while parent company Warner Bros. Discovery’s chief executive, David Zaslav, promised a 10-year plan.

The “Joker” sequel wasn’t really a superhero movie, and it bombed. Sony’s “Madame Web” and “Kraven the Hunter” tanked as well, while “Venom: The Last Dance” fell short of its predecessors. Walt Disney Co.-owned Marvel Studios only put out one film, “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which topped $1 billion in ticket sales.

This year has been a mixed bag for Marvel. “Captain America: Brave New World” struggled with poor reviews and a middling box office performance ($414 million globally), followed by “Thunderbolts*,” which was a commercial disappointment mitigated by a much warmer audience reception.

Marvel’s next big swing comes later this month with “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” which analysts say is tracking for an opening of around $100 million in the U.S. and Canada, give or take. “Fantastic Four” is an important but peculiar property for Marvel. Like Superman for DC, it’s a seminal text in comic book history, marking Marvel Comics’ first superhero team.

But the quartet’s story has been notoriously fraught for filmmakers. 20th Century Fox produced three movies featuring the four oddly powered heroes — Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch and the Thing. None of those films were good. The 2015 Josh Trank-directed reboot was an especially epic disaster.

When Disney acquired Fox in 2019, it gave Marvel President Kevin Feige the coveted keys to some of the brand’s most famous properties — among them, the Fantastic Four. Perhaps Feige can succeed where previous attempts failed, as the studio leans into the franchise’s retro vibe.

Notably, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” is the last Marvel Cinematic Universe movie on the release calendar for at least a year, until Sony’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” comes out at the end of July 2026. After that comes “Avengers: Doomsday” that December. The big studios seem to have absorbed the lesson that audiences’ appetites only go so far these days.

Gunn, who speaks fans’ language as well as anyone in the business, has long been vocal with his diagnosis of what ails the genre.

In January 2023, shortly after he and Safran took over the DC unit, he acknowledged that superhero fatigue “can be real, once the movies start to get repetitive.” He criticized studios for rushing into production with unfinished scripts — a point he repeated during the “Superman” press tour.

Disney CEO Bob Iger has admitted that Marvel got itself in trouble by producing too much too fast, stretching itself thinner than Mister Fantastic to generate box office and Disney+ content.

In that spirit, DC Studios isn’t flooding the zone. The group’s next feature, “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow,” starring Milly Alcock, doesn’t come out until next summer.

For now, “Superman” is a welcome rebound for DC, having overcome mixed reactions to the early trailers. The political noise about the movie being “superwoke” was just plain silly.

The story is epic but drops the ponderous brooding of the Zack Snyder era. There’s humor and chemistry between the two leads, Corenswet’s Clark Kent and Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois Lane. Worries that there would be too much screen time devoted to Superman’s pooch Krypto were overblown. There are DC universe tie-ins, including a cameo from John Cena’s Peacemaker, but they’re not overly obtrusive.

The main hurdle is the international audience, and theories abound for why the results abroad were relatively modest. Could it be that Superman’s essential American-ness was a turnoff for international audiences during the divisive Trump era? Maybe it was just a matter of massive competition from movies including “Jurassic World Rebirth” or the lack of a big global star in the main role. That’s all based on analyst hunches.

This much is clear: Superman’s work isn’t done yet, and neither is that of Gunn and Safran.

Stuff we wrote

Number of the week

“Bluey” is still the king of streaming.

The beloved Australian kids’ cartoon about a family of heeler dogs topped Nielsen’s rankings for the first half of 2025, generating 25 billion minutes viewed on Disney+, the TV measurement firm said Monday.

“Bluey’s” dominance is easy to explain. The Joe Brumm creation from Queensland’s Ludo Studio is the rare kids’ program that little ones like mine request all the time without eliciting groans from their parents. Also, there are more than 150 episodes of about seven minutes in length, so it’s readily bingeable and rewatchable.

Among Nielsen’s list of original programs, Netflix’s “Squid Game” ranked highest, thanks to its second season, which premiered late last year on the streamer. It scored 15 billion minutes watched January through June.

Netflix had four of the top 10 most-viewed original programs: “Squid Game,” “The Night Agent” (No. 3 wtih 12.2 billion minutes), “Ginny & Georgia” (No. 4, 10.2 billion minutes) and “You” (No. 9, 8.1 billion minutes). However, other services managed to penetrate the top ranks despite having fewer subscribers.

Prime Video’s “Reacher” was No. 2 with 13.3 billion minutes, while the smaller Apple TV+ scored a No. 5 series with “Severance” (9.3 billion minutes). Paramount+ notched two slots in the top 10, with (no surprise) Taylor Sheridan shows: “1923” (No. 6, 8.5 billion minutes) and “Landman” (No. 10, 7.8 billion minutes).

HBO Max and Hulu got into the ranking with, respectively, “The Pitt” (No. 7, 8.23 billion minutes, in an impressive haul for a first season) and stalwart “The Handmaid’s Tale” (No. 8, 8.17 billion minutes).

In other TV measurement news, Nielsen on Tuesday said broadcast’s share of TV viewing fell to 18.5% in June, marking the first time the category has fallen below 20%.

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