James Gunn's 'Superman' Earns Third-Largest Debut of 2025
Supermanis flying to the top of the box office as it earned $217 million USD during its opening weekend.
Varietyreports thatJames Gunn's latestDCfilm grossed $122 million USD domestically, making it the third-largest debut of 2025 so far. It's placed just behindA Minecraft MovieandLilo & Stitch, and also took in an additional $95 million USD at the global box office from 78 markets. Superman cost Warner Bros. and DC Studios $225 million USD to produce, and another $100 million USD for promotion.
'This is an outstanding domestic opening. If there's any softness here, it's overseas,' David A. Gross of FranchiseRe said. 'Superman has always been identified as an American character, and in some parts of the world, America is currently not enjoying its greatest popularity.'
'Three years ago, I hired James Gunn and Peter Safran to reimagine and unify the creative direction of DC under one leadership team,' said David Zaslav, president and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, in a statement. 'The DC vision is clear, the momentum is real, and I couldn't be more excited for what's ahead.'
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New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Inside the lavish Condé Nast life: Mirrors to make staffers look slimmer, competing for free Hugo Boss suits — and Anna Wintour's wasteful lunch
In the late 1990s, when billionaire publisher SI Newhouse decided to move his Condé Nast headquarters from 350 Madison Avenue to 4 Times Square, there were grumblings amongst staffers at Vogue, Vanity Fair and other magazines within the media empire. While the new location was only two blocks from the former headquarters, there were concerns that Times Square was seedy — and too far from a beloved upscale Italian restaurant, Mangia, from which staffers liked to order pricey grilled eggplant. There were also worries about whether the closet space in the new offices would be large enough to contain everyone's designer coats. 11 Anna Wintour and SI Newhouse attend a book party in 1990. Getty Images Advertisement To boost enthusiasm for the move, Newhouse and Condé's then editorial director James Truman had an idea: They would build an elaborate cafeteria for employees. The resulting dining area wasn't your standard feeding frenzy space. Newhouse hired star architect Frank Gehry to design it. The venue, rumored to cost as much as $30 million, featured 39 cozy banquettes — the better for gossiping. Seventy-six panels of Venetian glass glittered from the ceiling. And the pièce de résistance? The distorted mirrors on the columns were specially designed by Gehry — to make employees look thinner 11 The legendary Condé Nast cafeteria featured mirrors that made employees appear thinner. Brian Zak/NY Post Advertisement 'It was a very witty architectural gesture … that encouraged performance, and made people look and feel good,' Truman says in the new book, 'Empire of the Elite: Inside Condé Nast, the Media Dynasty that Reshaped America,' by Michael M. Grynbaum (Simon & Schuster; out today). Grynbaum portrays the lavish spending at Condé Nast during its magazines heydays in the '80s, '90s and early aughts — and the jaw-dropping displays of excess enjoyed by editors including Vogue's Anna Wintour and Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter. '[Newhouse] empowered his editors to fuel his new American fantasyland, urging experimentation and extravagance that competing publishers balked at and could not compete with,' he writes. '[His] billions funded an operation where sizzle and status often mattered more than breaking even.' In 1989, famed photographer Annie Leibovitz was supposedly hesitant about renewing her contract with Vanity Fair and asked for a $250,000 raise. Newhouse told the magazine's then editor-in-chief, Tina Brown, to go along with it, saying 'Don't nickel and dime her.' Advertisement 11 Staffers initially weren't enthused about the headquarters moving to 4 Times Square. New York Post Alan Richman, a writer who started covering food for GQ in 1986, recalls going to Tokyo for two weeks in 2008 for the magazine. Upon returning, he filed an expense report for $14,000, prompting an editor to ask: 'Is that all?' Even more over-the-top, the magazine paid for Richman to travel to Milan and Florence for the Italian menswear shows, even though he didn't cover fashion. His role? To select wine that would suit GQ's editor, the late Art Cooper, when he entertained Italian advertisers. In NYC, Cooper was known to spend lunch holding court in his dedicated booth at the Grill Room of the Four Seasons, where he would enjoy a martini and a very pricey bottle of Italian wine. It wasn't uncommon for the tab to more than $500, but no matter, it was charged straight to Condé. Advertisement '[Newhouse] liked his editors to live the upper-class-lifestyle they pedaled,' Grynbaum writes. 'He didn't have to tell Art Cooper twice.' 11 A new book looks at Condé Nast's heyday and the lavish life top editors enjoyed. Cooper even borrowed a million bucks from Condé to buy a second home in Connecticut, where he'd host staffers for summer getaways, sometimes pitting them against each other on the tennis court. One winner was awarded a Hugo Boss suit. Other top editors, including Carter and Wintour, also got favorable loans from the company to buy homes. Spending lavishly was the norm. Editors jetted to Europe on the Concorde and stayed at five-star hotels. Those who booked cheaper lodging were chastised. Staffers also dipped into petty cash and took limos all around town on the company dime. Grynbaum writes of editors, some of whom had dedicated drivers, using company cars to pick up Chinese takeout or go to the chiropractor — and 'at least one' assistant who made use of the tony transportation for a drug run. 11 Arthur Cooper, the late former Editor-in-Chief at GQ, was known for his extravagant taste in wine and $500 lunches at the Four Seasons. FilmMagic Advertisement 'As Si explained it,' he asserts, 'Condé did not have to answer to shareholder, and it was important to keep valued employees happy.' And the big spenders had the smallest details of their lives catered to. Carter, who served as Vanity Fair's editor-in-chief for 25 years, had an assistant meet his car each morning and carry his briefcase to his office, so that he could stroll through the lobby unencumbered. At the end of the day, the assistant would transport the briefcase to the car, after the editor asked, 'Will you do the honors?' Another key task for Carter's assistants was traveling ahead of him to prepare his suite at lavish hotels, stocking the desk with the same pencils and ashtray that the had in the NYC office. Advertisement Wintour, who recently shifted from Vogue's editor-in-chief to global editorial directorial, had to have her daily cappuccino perfectly timed. She had a standing lunch reservation at the Royalton, where a restaurant staffer would start making the drink 10 minutes ahead of her planned arrival, in case she was early. If the drink sat out for more than two minutes, it was tossed out, and a new one prepared. 11 Graydon Carter would have an assistant carry his briefcase from his town car to his office so he could walk through the lobby unencumbered. Corbis via Getty Images Sometimes Wintour ran so late that, a former employee at the Royalton told Grynbaum, as many as 12 cappuccinos might be made to get the timing just right. Wannabes looking to work at Condé, meanwhile, had to clear a high society bar for entry. Advertisement In the mid-1990s, those applying for an assistant job at Vogue faced an oral exam where they had to identify, on the spot, various people, places and elements of culture high and low, from a typed list of 178 entries. 'The ideal candidate would recognize Fassbinder as the New German Cinema director, Evan Dando as the lead singer of the Lemonheads, the Connaught as the luxury London hotel, and the opening sentence of Proust's 'Swann's Way,'' Grynbaum writes. Once in, those from common backgrounds sometimes had to be schooled to behave more like privileged WASPs and British aristocrats. 11 Photographer Annie Leibovitz (pictured with Carter) was known for her extravagant, expensive shoots. Getty Images for Vanity Fair Advertisement 'I had to learn how to speak like a Condé Nast person,' Jennifer Barnett, a Navy brat-turned-Teen Vogue editor, told Grynbaum. 'You never say anything to anyone directly.' When Carolyne Volpe arrive as a beauty assistant at Vogue in her early 20s, her boss told her there was already a Caroline at the magazine — and said she should go by her given first name, Lynden, instead, though no one in her life had ever called her that. 'She thought it was a chicer, more unique name, which it probably is,' Volpe says in the book. When employees were fired, it was handled with upper crust stealth. Alex Liberman, the publishing company's legendary editorial director, had a strategy where he would pop into someone's office just before going home time, gently touch their arm or shoulder and say something like, 'May I be frank, they're going to fire you tomorrow.' He'd then make a point of telling the person he wanted to keep in touch and arrange a lunch date, on the spot, for a few weeks out — somewhere fancy but public. 11 Anna Wintour with Newhouse (left) and designer Karl Lagerfeld attend the 'Seventh on Sale' event in 1990. Getty Images Photo shoots could be especially over-the-top and wasteful. Numerous samples of pricey baubles from Cartier were smashed for Irving Penn to get the shot just right. In the 1960s, Vogue editor-in-chief Diane Vreeland had Irving Penn reshoot an elaborate fashion spread not once but twice because the shade of green wasn't just right. In 1988, a Vogue team spent weeks in Kenya for a disastrous shoot featuring Kim Basinger in safari garb. Twenty-three trunks of clothes had to be shipped to Africa, and falcon was hired for the actress to hold — as her designer heels sunk into the mud and she feared it would attack her face. The following year, Tina Brown, then the editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair, had Leibovitz shoot 2,500 rolls film and fly 41,000 miles around the world— in first class, of course — to create a high-wattage portfolio of stars of the decade. 11 Wintour looked glam at a Fashion Week event in 1990 with designers Gianna Versace (from left), Karl Lagerfeld and Christian Lacroix. Getty Images Eventually, the purse strings had to be tightened. In 1996, the Wall Street Journal reported that nine of Condé's 14 magazines were unprofitable, and that the company had lost some $20 million in the fiscal year ending in 1994. Still, there was optimism. In 2007, Condé launched Portfolio magazine, with a reported $100 million behind it. Tom Wolfe was reportedly paid a whopping $12 per word to write a 7,400-word story for the new project. Its first sentence, which would have netted Wolfe more than $200? 'Not bam bam bam bam bam bam, but bama bampa barama bam bammity bam bam bammity barampa.' 11 Anna Wintour became co-chair of the Met Gala in 1995 and transformed the event into one of fashion's biggest nights. Getty Images 'We are the top-end publisher and it has served us well and I believe it will stand the test,' Charles Townsend, the CEO of Condé, said at the time. But, as Grynbaum notes, 'it didn't.' The final nail in the coffin was when Portfolio editors rented a live elephant for a photo shoot. A threatening pachyderm standing over a banker at a desk was meant to convey that credit derivatives were the 'elephant in the room' in the banking world. The magazine abruptly folded in 2009, in the depths of the recession, after two profitless years. Newhouse passed away in 2017 at age 89. That same year, the company was reported to have lost more than $120 million. 11 An elaborate photoshoot for Portfolio magazine put a real elephant in a financial office environment to illustrate the idea that credit derivatives are the 'elephant in the room.' Condé Nast Portfolio Two years prior, Condé Nast had left Times Square for 1 World Trade Center, where Self, Glamour, Teen Vogue and Allure were all reduced to online-only editions. Details and Lucky were shuttered. As Carter wrote earlier in his own book, 'When the Going Was Good,' earlier this year, 'You never know when you're in a golden age. You only realize it was a golden age when it's gone.'
Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
To penalize ‘foreign-made' films is to punish Americans too
When a country like Armenia sends a film out into the world, it's not just art. It's a way to preserve memory, to reach a scattered diaspora. Each film offers the world stories that might otherwise be forgotten. So when President Trump proposes a 100% tariff on all films 'produced in foreign lands,' the damage isn't limited to foreign competitors or outsourcing studios. It threatens to shut out small nations like Armenia, for whom cinema is a lifeline. The proposal hasn't taken effect — yet. But July 9 marked a turning point in Trump's broader tariff agenda, with a deadline for reimposing sweeping trade penalties on countries deemed 'unfair.' While the situation for films remains unclear, the proposal alone has done damage and continues to haunt the industry. The tariff idea arises from the worldview that treats international exchange as a threat — and cultural expression as just another import to tax. Take 'Amerikatsi' (2022), the extraordinary recent movie by Emmy-winning actor and director Michael A. Goorjian. Inspired by his grandfather's escape from the Armenian genocide — smuggled across the ocean in a crate — the project is not just a movie; it's a universal story rooted in the Armenian experience, made possible by international collaboration and driven by a deep personal mission. Goorjian filmed it in Armenia with local crews, including people who, months later, would find themselves on the front lines of war. One was killed. Others were injured. Still, they sent him videos from the trenches saying all they wanted was to return to the set. That is the spirit a tariff like this would crush. Armenia is a democracy in a dangerous neighborhood. Its history is riddled with trauma — genocide, war, occupation — and its present is haunted by threats from neighboring authoritarian regimes. But even as bombs fall and borders close, its people create. Films like 'Aurora's Sunrise' (2022) and 'Should the Wind Drop' (2020) carry voices across oceans, turning pain into poetry, history into cinema. These films don't rely on wide releases. They depend on arthouses, festivals, streamers and distributors with the courage and curiosity to take a chance. A 100% tariff would devastate that. Indeed, the ripple effects of such a tariff would upend the entire global film ecosystem. Modern cinema is inherently international: A Georgian director might work with a French editor, an American actor and a German financier. So sure, many American films use crew and facilities in Canada. But international co-productions are a growing cornerstone of the global film industry, particularly in Europe. Belgium produces up to 72% of its films in partnership with foreign nations, often France. Other notable co-production leaders include Luxembourg (45% with France), Slovakia (38% with Czechia) and Switzerland (31% with France). These partnerships are often driven by shared language, which is why the U.S. is also frequently involved in co-productions with Britain as well as Canada. Israel too has leaned into this model, using agreements with countries such as France, Germany and Canada to gain access to international audiences and funding mechanisms. The U.S. government cannot unmake this system and should not try to do so. To penalize 'foreign-made' films is to punish Americans too — artists, producers and distributors who thrive on collaboration. You can't build a wall around storytelling. Supporters of the tariff argue it protects American workers. But Hollywood is already one of the most globalized industries on Earth, and the idea that it suffers from too many foreign films is absurd. If anything, it suffers from too few. The result of this policy won't be a thriving domestic market — but a quieter, flatter, more parochial one. A landscape where the next 'Amerikatsi' never gets seen, where a generation of Armenian American youth never discovers their history through a movie screen. If America still wants to lead in the 21st century — not just militarily and economically but morally — it should lead through culture and avoid isolation. Stories like 'Amerikatsi' remind us why that matters. A film that begins with a boy smuggled in a crate across the ocean ends with a message of joy and resilience. That's not just Armenian history — it's American history too. It cannot be separated. Unless we want that kind of storytelling priced out of our cinemas (and off our streaming platforms), we must keep the doors open. For America to turn its back on stories like these would be a betrayal of everything film can be. And it would impoverish American society too. That way lies not greatness but provinciality. Alexis Alexanian is a New York City-based film producer, consultant and educator whose credits include 'A League of Their Own' and 'Pieces of April.' She is a past president of New York Women in Film & Television and sits on the board of BAFTA North America.
News24
3 hours ago
- News24
Harry Potter returns: Upcoming series promises new adventures with fresh-faced cast
Filming has begun on a Harry Potter TV series that will debut in 2027, bringing the Hollywood hit to the small screen for the first time. Adapted from the wildly popular books, which have also yielded blockbuster films and stage shows, the latest outing for the boy who lived is being filmed at Warner Bros. Studios in Leavesden, Britain, the studio said Monday. While no exact release date has been confirmed, the show will be available on the HBO Max streaming platform. The franchise sees the eponymous Potter plucked from non-magical obscurity and thrust into a wizarding world in which he and his close friends Ron and Hermione battle against the forces of darkness. With the mega-selling books' author JK Rowling among its executive producers, the show is envisaged as 'a decade-long series' featuring a new cast from the films. View this post on Instagram A post shared by HBO Max (@hbomax) Potter will be played by Dominic McLaughlin, Arabella Stanton will star as Hermione Granger and Alastair Stout will take on the role of Ron Weasley. Established stars will appear alongside them, with John Lithgow playing headmaster Albus Dumbledore, Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape and Nick Frost as Rubeus Hagrid. View this post on Instagram A post shared by HBO Max (@hbomax) Rowling has faced accusations of transphobia in recent years for placing an emphasis on biological sex over gender identity in comments about trans women. She denies the accusation.
