Superman returned to the big screen this Father’s Day Weekend, sparking a 51% box office boost from last year and setting a new June record.<\/p>\n
After the disappointment of ‘Superman Returns<\/a>‘, the debut of Zack Snyder’s ‘Man of Steel<\/strong>‘ was in some doubt. However, a strong promotional push and filmmaking ties with ‘Dark Knight’ trilogy writer\/director Christopher Nolan helped propel this successful franchise reboot.<\/p>\n Walmart sold tickets to ‘Man of Steel’ showings on Thursday night, but for some reason, the $12 million earned that way haven’t been tallied with the three-day weekend totals. That makes no sense to me, because theaters host plenty of Thursday “private event” showings for big movies, and those totals are always<\/em> factored into weekend box office numbers. If you count the Walmart showings, ‘Man of Steel’ opened to $125 million \u2013 which is pretty impressive because early predictions worried that it wouldn’t even crack $100 million. Even if you don’t include Walmart’s earnings, the film still beat the previous June record-holder, the $110.3 million debut of ‘Toy Story 3<\/a>‘.<\/p>\n Supes is also having great success overseas. ‘Man of Steel’ earned $71.6 million from 24 international markets, bringing its worldwide debut to $196.7 million. 12% of the domestic earnings came for IMAX showings and 41% from 3D.<\/p>\n Sony is definitely pleased with the opening of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s apocalyptic comedy ‘This Is the End<\/strong>‘. The side-splitting $32 million flick earned $20.5 million over the weekend and another $12.3 million from Wednesday and Thursday showings. The five-day totals have already helped the studio break even on the film’s budget. Now it just has to earn back everything spent on marketing, which shouldn’t take too long.<\/p>\n After 17 days in theaters, ‘Now You See Me<\/strong>‘ continues to hold strong. With another $10.3 million, the caper flick (budgeted at $75) has now earned $80 million. Meanwhile, the four-week-old ‘Fast & Furious 6<\/strong>‘ is also still performing well, adding $9.4 million to its domestic $219.5 million. Worldwide, the sequel has outgrossed the worldwide totals of ‘Fast Five<\/a>‘ ($628 million, the new franchise record being $636.9 million).<\/p>\n Rounding out the Top 5 was last week’s top movie, ‘The Purge<\/strong>‘. Despite a terrible 76% drop-off, the $3 million movie is already a huge success with ten-day grosses of $51.8 million.<\/p>\n