Can 'Superman' Overcome This Summer's Weak 2nd Weekend Hold Trend?
For over $40 million openers, this summer so far has meant mostly big drops.
‘Superman’ (Warner Bros.)
With $11.75 million on Wednesday, “Superman” in six days has now grossed $166.8 million in the U.S./Canada. It should easily be #1 its second weekend, fending off openings of “The Smurfs Movie” (Paramount), “I Know What You Did Last Summer” (Sony), and “Eddington” (A24), likely grossing as much as double all three combined.
The second weekend will give a strong indication of whether the first DC Studios production under James Gunn’s leadership could gross as high as $400 million domestically. If the results suggest that, it will reverse a glaring weakness so far this summer among the biggest openers.
With the May-Labor Day season more than half over, the best second weekend drop for a film opening over $40 million was “F1” (WB), down 54.8%. That’s among seven films at that first weekend level before “Superman.”
And that’s weak to be the best hold. Going back to 2022, over four years 33 films opened above $40 million during summer. “F1” would not rank among the top 10 among second weekend drops, which is a sign of weakness this season among what have been some otherwise strong positive signals.
Here are the 10 best holds for 2022-2025 summers:
Top Gun: Maverick (2022) -29%
Inside Out 2 (2024) -34%
Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024) -40%
Barbie (2023) -43%
Oppenheimer (2023) -43%
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2022) -48%
It Ends with Us (2024) -52%
Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) -54%
Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) -54%
Indiana Jones & the Dial of Destiny (2023) -54.6%
The best hold this year (one of the all time best holds for a film opening over $40 million) was “Sinners,” with a stunning drop of only 5%. Drops under 30% are rare, and then almost always seen either at Thanksgiving or Christmas when holiday weekends often boost second weeks.
To beat “F1” as best this summer, “Superman” would have to gross $56.5 million this weekend. To make the top 10 for the last four summers, the figure is $58.5 million.
That’s right in the range of predictions, so it looks like a real possibility. A good rule of thumb to predicting the high end of a second weekend in summer is take the first Wednesday gross ($11.75 million here) and multiply by five. (The formula is higher in non-summer/non-holiday months). Five times $11.75 million? $58.8 million.
If it does $60 million, it would be around $235 million for 10 days. And that likely would position it for a three-times opening weekend multiple of $375 million for its U.S./Canada total.
Including projections for currently playing films, the highest projected multiple so far seems to be “How to Train Your Dragon” at 3.2 times opening at its current trajectory.
That once again shows weakness for the summer. Since 2022, for $40 million+ openers, eight had multiples of 3.4 times or more, none from this year. That list is led by “Maverick” (5.7 times), “Inside Out 2” second best at 4.3 times, then both “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” 4.0 times. (This calculation includes a handful of Wednesday openings - the industry formula to try to get an approximate equivalent for a Friday opening is to add half the Wednesday-Thursday gross to the subsequent weekend).
Hits this summer? For sure. But none so far that have the sense of the kind of momentum and enthusiasm that most summers have seen from individual titles. Might “Superman” break this trend? This weekend should give us the answer.