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‘Superman' flexes its might in second weekend with $57.3 million

‘Superman' flexes its might in second weekend with $57.3 million

The Hill5 days ago
NEW YORK (AP) — James Gunn's 'Superman' showed staying power in its second weekend at North American box offices, collecting $57.3 million in ticket sales and remaining the No. 1 movie in cinemas, according to studio estimates Sunday.
None of the week's new releases — 'I Know What You Did Last Summer,' 'Smurfs,' and 'Eddington' — came close to touching Warner Bros. and DC Studios' superhero success. 'Superman' dipped 54% from its domestic opening, an average decline for a big summer film.
In two weeks, 'Superman' has grossed $406.8 million worldwide, a good start for the movie DC Studios is banking on to restart its movie operations. A big test looms next weekend, when the Walt Disney Co. releases Marvel's 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps.'
Strong audience scores and good reviews should help propel the $225 million-budgeted 'Superman' toward profitability in the coming weeks. For Warner Bros. and DC Studios, 'Superman' is key to kicking off a 10-year plan for the comic book adaptation studio. Co-heads Gunn and Peter Safra were tasked with rehabilitating the flagging operation. Next on tap are the films 'Supergirl' and 'Clayface' in 2026.
But 'Superman' is far from flying solo in theaters right now. Universal Pictures' 'Jurassic World: Rebirth' came in second this weekend, with $23.4 million in its third week of release. The seventh 'Jurassic' movie, this one starring Scarlett Johansson, held its own despite the competition from 'Superman.' In three weeks, it accrued $648 million worldwide.
Apple Studios and Warner Bros.' 'F1: The Movie' has also shown legs, especially internationally. In its fourth weekend, the Brad Pitt racing drama dipped just 26% domestically, bringing in $9.6 million in North America, and another $29.5 million overseas. Its global total stands at $460.8 million.
But both of the biggest new releases — Sony Pictures' 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' and Paramount Pictures' 'Smurfs' — fell flat.
'I Know What You Did Last Summer' opened with $13 million, a fair result for a movie budgeted at a modest $18 million, but a disappointing opening for a well-known horror franchise. The film, directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, is set 27 years after the 1997 original. Teenagers played by Madelyn Cline and Chase Sui Wonders are again haunted for covering up a car accident.
The movie's reviews (38% 'fresh' on Rotten Tomatoes) were poor for 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' and audiences graded it similarly. The film notched a 'C+' on CinemaScore. The original collected $72.6 million in its domestic run in 1997.
Paramount Pictures' 'Smurfs' debuted in fourth place this weekend with $11 million. The latest big-screen reboot for the woodland blue creatures prominently features Rihanna as the voice of Smurfette. But reviews (21% 'fresh' on Rotten Tomatoes) were terrible. Audiences were kinder, giving it a 'B+' on CinemaScore, but the $58 million-budgeted release will depend largely on its international sales. In 56 overseas markets, 'Smurfs' earned $22.6 million.
Ari Aster's 'Eddington' opened with $4.2 million on 2,111 screens for A24. Since its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, 'Eddington' has been particularly divisive. The pandemic-set Western features Joaquin Phoenix as the right-wing sheriff of a small New Mexico town who faces off with its liberal mayor (Pedro Pascal).
While Aster's first film, 2018's 'Heredity' ($82.8 million worldwide against a $10 million budget) helped establish A24 as an indie powerhouse, but the less-than-stellar launch of 'Eddington' marks the second box-office disappointment for Aster. His 2023 film 'Beau Is Afraid' cost $35 million to make but collected just $12.4 million worldwide. 'Eddington' cost about $25 million to produce. Audiences gave it a 'C+' on CinemaScore. None of Aster's previous films have been graded higher.
Yet collectively, Hollywood is enjoying a very good summer. According to data firm Comscore, the 2025 summer box office is up 15.9% over the same period last year, with the year-to-date sales running 15% ahead of 2025. Summer ticket sales have amassed about $2.6 billion domestically, according to Comscore.
Top 10 movies by domestic box office
With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:
1. 'Superman,' $57.3 million.
2. 'Jurassic World Rebirth,' $23.4 million.
3. 'I Know What You Did Last Summer,' $13 million.
4. 'Smurfs,' $11 million.
5, 'F1: The Movie,' $9.6 million.
6. 'How to Train Your Dragon,' $5.4 million.
7. 'Eddington,' $4.3 million.
8. 'Elio,' $2 million.
9. 'Lilo & Stitch,' $1.5 million.
10. '28 Years Later,' $1.3 million.
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PEACEMAKER Season 2 Image Features a Monstrous New Character; New Synopsis Released — GeekTyrant
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Jennifer Love Hewitt slams Sarah Michelle Gellar feud rumors
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She knows what they did last summer. As the modern classic 1997 horror movie 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' has gotten a 2025 revival (now in theaters), there have been rumors of a feud between original stars Jennifer Love Hewitt, 46, and Sarah Michelle Gellar, 48. 'I honestly remain still so confused by all of that stuff,' Hewitt exclusively told The Post. The 'Can't Hardly Wait' actress, who was talking to The Post to promote her ID series 'A Killer Among Friends (airing Mondays 10 p.m. on ID and streaming on HBO Max), added, 'I just feel like we're in a business where they always want women to have a problem with each other.' 11 Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jennifer Love Hewitt in 1998. Bei/Shutterstock 11 Jennifer Love Hewitt at the premiere of 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' in LA on July 14, 2025. Sony Pictures via Getty Images 11 Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe. Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Freddie Prinze Jr in 1997's 'I Know What You Did Last Summer.' 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Four Superheroes Who Deserve a Day Off
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This was supposed to be the summer superhero movies became fun again. At first, that appeared to be true: Superman, released earlier this month, relaunched DC's previously dour cinematic universe as a brighter and bouncier affair; the film zips from one encounter to the next with sincere aplomb. Now, two weeks later, comes Marvel's The Fantastic Four: First Steps —which, coincidentally or not, seems similarly positioned as an injection of Technicolor fizz into a progressively more leaden franchise. Dispensing with continuity from previous installments, the film is set on a retro-futuristic version of Earth where everything looks as if it were designed by Eero Saarinen. As an effort to breathe new life into a particularly moribund title—there have been four prior takes on these characters, all of them bad — First Steps is essentially successful. What it somehow can't manage to do is have much of a good time in the process. First Steps, directed by Matt Shakman, has several things working in its favor. It's quite handsome to look at, and features an elegant ensemble of actors who are capable of the big, dramatic moments thrown at them. Its action sequences also achieve a true sense of scale, something chintzier Marvel entries often struggle with. But First Steps zooms past the Fantastic Four's origins and, more detrimentally, their odd family dynamic. Instead, it dives headfirst into a portentous, celestial story in which Earth's apocalypse is almost immediately at hand. There's no time for the characters to engage in era-appropriate diversions (such as, perhaps, kicking back with martinis) or match wits with colorfully costumed adversaries. This adventure is all end-of-the-world menace, all the time. The lack of breathing room is striking. After all, these characters come from one of comic books' richest texts: The Fantastic Four are the original Marvel superhero team, created by the legendary writer-illustrator team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The comic kicked off the company's 1960s revival and redefined the medium for an entire generation. Mr. Fantastic, a.k.a. Reed Richards (here played by Pedro Pascal), is the irritable, busy father figure; he's also a genius scientist who can stretch like rubber. (He mostly uses his power in this adaptation to fill many wide chalkboards with math equations.) His wife, Susan Storm, also known as the Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), is able to vanish and throw force fields around everything; her brother, Johnny (Joseph Quinn), is the Human Torch, who can burst into flame and take to the skies. The trio's best pal is Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), a human turned orange, rocky beast known as the Thing. 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Johnny and Ben are usually depicted as bickering surrogate brothers, the hotheaded youngster and the curmudgeonly elder; Susan is a pragmatic force, with Reed often lost in his own world. In First Steps, however, the characters felt flattened out to me, while all four performances are muted and somewhat excessively grounded. An early scene sees Ben cooking tomato sauce with the group's helper robot, H.E.R.B.I.E., crushing garlic gloves with his gigantic fists 'to add a little bit of zip.' It's a cute moment, but an oddly underplayed one; in scene after scene like this, I kept wondering—where's the extra zip? Instead of playful banter, First Steps serves up deep, emotional conversations about the meaning of parenthood and the heroes' deepest fears. The plot kicks off with the reveal that after years of trying, Susan is pregnant, a joyful realization that, for Reed, quickly turns into worry that their child will also be superpowered. Soon after that, the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner)—a shiny interstellar being riding a big surfboard—appears, zooming from the clouds and proclaiming Earth's doom. She heralds Galactus (Ralph Ineson), a skyscraper-size villain from space who cruises around the universe eating planets whole; his arrival immediately plunges the Fantastic Four into a crisis that they spend the rest of the film trying to untangle. The Galactus saga is the most famous in Fantastic Four lore, but it's also a conflict the comic built up to in the 1960s, churning through sillier villains before introducing a more impassive, terrifying force. He's a tough first challenge for this new on-screen team to take on, one that drives Reed into instant misery as he struggles to fathom how to confront an enemy who cannot be bargained with. Pascal is smart casting for the role—he has the right air of sophistication and maturity—but the script engulfs his character in such a dark crisis of confidence that the actor's charisma can't shine through. The same goes for Kirby as the joyless Susan, who impressively handles all the steeliness required of her. Quinn, who charmed me in recent blockbusters such as A Quiet Place: Day One and Gladiator II, feels too tightly wound as Johnny. Moss-Bachrach does quite lovely work as Ben, but the movie is perhaps overly focused on the hardened fella's softer side; it largely ignores the character's more tormented feelings about his physical transformation. First Steps is also shockingly comfortable to go long stretches without big action; the centerpiece is a space mission with shades of Interstellar that is genuinely thrilling, but some members of the team (particularly Mr. Fantastic) get few chances to really show off their superpowers. As surprisingly downbeat as it is, I appreciated the fundamental message of the film, which is set in a more hopeful world. When a crisis arises, Reed and company are actually capable of rallying the world to help save itself. Multiple times in First Steps, Shakman emphasizes the power of a global community, the kind he's clearly longing for in our world. Those are the zippiest ingredients he tosses into the sauce; I just wish he'd allowed the heroes to loosen up.

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