I am pretty surprised at the dip this has taken at the box office over the last month or so. I don't know what is going on anymore. I could have sworn this film was a lock to make well over 200 million.

I'm pretty sure WB's ultimate goal is a World's Finest or Justice League movie. Seeing Batman and Superman (along with possibly Wonder Woman) team up on the big screen would certainly bring in the bucks. I wouldn't be surprised to see WB have Superman die in a future sequel, only to setup his return in a JLA-style team movie.

The idea of a team-up for the current incarnations of Superman and Batman (or even previous incarnations of either) makes my stomach queasy. And not in a good way.

But why not? Superman has a lot of the stalker skills that Batman should really learn.

You don't know what's going on? It's the little steamroller that could (aka Pirates of the Caribbean 2)! PotC2 only just this weekend dropped from number 1, but in the process it's been breaking every record on the books (except the BIG one held by Titanic, which will be hard)!

That is the biggest reason for Supes failure. And the fact that the movie isn't brainless, which makes it harder to sit through for children. It's too dark for the young young kids with not enough big sequences.
-ringding-

It's unfortunate that this year's Independence Day (POTC2) is sucking the minds and money of quite a few Americans. I'm sure we'll all look back on Superman Returns with fond memories and open wallets! POTC2 may even be a blockbuster DVD, but will anyone care ten years from now? I've read many of the early POTC2 reviews and they were almost universally negative.

Yes.

sucks that supes was a box office disappointment but can you blame the people... the story wasnt good.

Bah, all Superman would have to do is blow a super-kiss around the world, and everyone would conveniently forget that Clark is supposed to be dead.

For a villain, I would like to see Mr. Mxyzptlk on the big screen. He was always my favorite Superman villain.

Duality wrote:
POTC2 may even be a blockbuster DVD, but will anyone care ten years from now?

I doubt it. I hear so many people say they like "POTC2" (and just as many who hated it), but of those fans, do they think it's better than the first one? I hope not. To me, that movie was fantastic. Fresh. Nicely paced. Just the right amount of special effects, etc. I thought the sequel was a mess.

Clearly you've never been in love

Audience reaction to me seems just as mixed with Superman Returns as it is with POTC2. POTC2 may not be remembered as much as the first film 10 years from now, but just the same, I think people will remember Superman Returns only in passing as they look back further to the original Superman movie.

I personally felt that if Superman Returns was a better film it would have held at least a bit better at the box office even despite the enormous take of POTC2.

Well shouldn't Batman Begins have done better than "just" $205 million? For a movie that many consider to be on of the top 5 comic book films, shouldn't it have made more? Superman is going to come up about $10 million behind Batman, which isn't bad.

Is Batman getting a free pass? It barely reached the big 200 mark and Supes will come up just short. Is it that big of a deal that it will end within $5 million of 200 mil?

I'm not talking about budget either. Most fans either don't know or don't care what the budget is for a film. I'm just going by dollars earned.

I loved Batman Begins and Superman Returns. I'm just wondering if Batman is getting a different set of rules regarding box office $$.

Batman had legs. People weren't pre-disposed to seeing it. It overcame a built in resistence because people kept seeing it and then telling other people how good it was.
It was also remarkably light on tie-in merchandising- so cross promotion was less than with Superman.

Superman is seen as having a more universal appeal (young, old, male, female) therefore when it doesn't perform universally better, something is wrong. Its also seen as a 'big' movie because the subject matter lends itself to bigger effects, bigger spectacle.

there is no mistake about it, the film was a disappointment, and Singer is, and should be, the one taking the rap. The effects were sensational, but some of the casting was bad, and the story- when it wasn't plagerizing the first film- was not very well thought out. I hope there is a sequel, and I hope Singer isn't there "to get all Wrath of Khan on it". Lets get someone else in there who is comfortable telling original stories, not just quasi-remaking the same movies he liked as a kid.

How could it be plagerizing the first film? Isn't all that stuff about Superman's childhood from the comic book?

I liked the "quasi-remake" aspect of it. It would be bad, though, if the next one was a quasi-remake of Superman II, which Singer has said it won't be. So I hope Singer's there, but I hope the only throwbacks to the originals will still the the music. Kapow.

I think by plagerizing he meant the many dialogue lines copied/pasted from the earlier film (Or the "homage" to the earlier films as I'm sure it was viewed by some).

Well in that case the X-Men films should also be brought up since many place those in the Top 5 comic book films too, and X2 wasn't much higher then Batman Begins in domestic box office totals.

Superman is something else because of the hype, marketing, and history behind the character and the film.

Yeah, this movie series needs some KHAAAN!

http://www.khaaan.com/

I can accept a homage in a film if its fairly unobtrusive and brief- but when you are incessently hitting not only the exact same beats, but the exact same story points as someone elses work, that crosses the line for me.

let's make it a rule, once you have more than 3 homages from the same source in one film- you're a suspect.
once you have more than a dozen, you are officially guilty of being a creative wuss.

I don't see how anyone could call Bryan Singer a creative wuss.

On the one hand, having the balls to introduce the Jason character, and the changes to Lois etc- is a VERY bold move.

unfortunately not much is really done with either of these things.
the film isn't really about these as much as it concerns itself with re-doing Luthors real estate plan (down to the use of plagerizing exact dialouge exchanges that came across as exptemporaneous in the first film and are forced in this one- "know what my father said to me when I was 12 years old...").
You know, I never had a problem the first time I ever saw it in S:TM. It was original, grandiose, demented, and made sense in a comic book way.
I thought it was a great scheme for that character in that film.

why is THIS character doing basically the exact same thing ("I don't want to bring fire to the people...I just want my cut" ....huh?) the characters motivation here is not organic to the character in this film at all- its a contrivance relating back to the first film. He's pissed at Superman, he wants to go down in history as the man who destroyed the US and changed the history of the world. Those things I could buy. Making a buck off it? puhleeeeze. That Singer would just make that the characters motivation here shows an affection for the original material, and that he has no clue that the story he wants to tell here has its own set of demands and conditions.

And why Luthor at all? There are numerous ways you could have tied the threat of a kryptonian-related (or just plain alien) mass growing in the ocean to Kals star voyage and return- that would have been an original threat.

anyways skip that. Why does the film end with Superman saying things he couldn have possibly remembered hearing if they were unscripted, extemporaneous expression from his father? And why would he be saying farewell and I wish I could be there for you' when he, unlike his father, actually can be there for him but may choose not to be?
Why do so many people accept inappropiate dialouge appropriation as representing an emotional highpoint? That was the pivitol moment in the film for it to break away and venture into new, original territory and what does Singer choose to do with the moment?- repeat more dialouge, verbatim, from the first film. wash, rinse, repeat.
the film is embroidered with bold ideas only half executed, and overstuffed with stolen dialogue, plot points, and scenic beats from someone elses film.

I was talking some family members, over the weekend, that are 16 and 12, and I asked them if they had seen it.They both said they had no desire to see it. That it didnt interest them (and they love Superhero movies). If this is two kids opinions, then others may just think Superman isn't hip anymore.

I do agree with Paul SD when he says the film is embroidered with bold ideas that are only half realized.

As a fan of the Superman movies, and because I'm geekily curious, I also asked a bunch of kids (my secretary's twelve year old son, my colleague's eight year old daughter and few others) if they were going to see SUPERMAN RETURNS. The most (un-)popular reply was, "I heard it was boring" which brings up the word of mouth factor again.

One teenage kid who is crazy about the SPIDER-MAN films even told me point blank, "I heard he was gay." His mother reprimanded him out of embarassment, but I insisted on finding out what he meant. And he told me that he read on the internet that there were discussions about Superman and the whole "gay thing." I didn't want to blame the kid (he's just a kid, after all), but you can be damn sure that the whole, overblown, mean-spirited and just plain irrelevant comments regarding the sexual orientation of the production people gets out of control with the great, unwashed masses, not unlike the whole "Is Superman patriotic?" nonsense based on a single line of dialogue.

In other words, the generally negative spin on the movie (too long, a chick flick, the cover story by THE ADVOCATE, the deletion of "the American Way", a bastard child, a deadbeat dad, on and on ad nauseam) can't help but turn people off. We know by now that too many consumers are guided by rumor, superficial politics, prejudice, group think, and peer pressure. It's no wonder that the uninformed had a negative view of the movie without giving it a chance.

Of course, it doesn't help when even die-hard fans like me can only give an "it was okay..." recommendation to friends and family. But you get the point...

Because everybody wanted to see Pirates, and nobody wanted to see a ponderous, preachy Superman movie. Reeve was fun and likable as Superman. Routh was so solemn and sanctimonious that I couldn't help sympathizing with Luthor's hatred toward him.

And I don't think this will be a DVD hit, because people who skipped it the first time probably won't be that motivated, and a lot of people who saw it in the theater won't want to watch it again. I liked the first two x-men films and I was kind of pumped up for Superman Returns, but it was wholly joyless. Christopher Nolan's meditative Batman movie worked because Batman is human and identifiable. Superman is not. A Superman movie has to deal with his feelings of isolation, but it has to have a light touch. A big part of what the appeal of Superman should be is the idea of how much fun it must be to be Superman. Brandon Routh spends the whole movie looking like he just came from a funeral.

Anyway, Warner Bros big summer strategy was "Poseidon," "Superman," and "Lady in the Water." I think describing them as disappointed is less accurate at this point than using a metaphor relating, perhaps, to being sodomized with a power drill.