There weren’t enough villains to knock Superman out of the top spot this weekend. The Fisherman, Razamel, and the Anti-Masker tried to draw a little attention away from James Gunn’s reboot, but even their combined strength was not enough. The Man of Steel has clear skies for at least another week before he is challenged by Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, and The Thing. Superman may be able to win the battles week to week, but a larger look at the numbers suggests that the war for the summer box office has already been won by another alien to our planet.
King of the Crop: Superman Continues to Soar
James Gunn’s Superman led the way, to no surprise, for a second straight week — the first to do so since How To Train Your Dragon. A sophomore haul of $57.2 million did the trick in putting the film ahead of the pace of Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, which is the film many analysts (and Snyder/Gunn adversaries) appear to be measuring it against. When you add in MoS’s Thursday numbers back in 2013 (as everyone now does), it actually equated to a $128 million start, higher than Superman’s $125 million final start. MoS took what would amount to a 68% drop back then. Superman’s 54% fall helped best that film’s $41.2 million second weekend by a mile, and it is now $24 million ahead with $235 million (unless you count inflation, in which case Man of Steel would be about $55 million ahead).
Nevertheless, these are numbers Warner Bros. and DC could promote as positives. But for how long? A certain Marvel movie hitting theaters this coming weekend, no matter whatever slump that side is in, should still cut Superman’s weekend numbers significantly again next week. Superman could be more in line with the figures right now for Thor: Love and Thunder, which had $233.9 million after 10 days (after a $46.6 million second weekend) and finished with $343 million. That certainly won’t beat Lilo & Stitch for the summer crown, but it would be the second-highest gross (after Wonder Woman) of any film in the now defunct Extended Universe of DC. That is certainly something the powers that be could work with going forward. Domestic estimates right now would look to be around $340-360 million. International numbers continue to be on the slight side ($171.8 million), which could still be concerning, even as the film is over $406 million globally. James Wan’s Aquaman films were the only DCEU films to crack $300 million globally since 2018.
Tales of the top 10: I Know What You Did Last Summer and Smurfs Disappoint, Lilo & Stitch Crosses $1 Billion
Weekend three for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was $28.6 million. Dominion came in at $26.7 million. Jurassic World: Rebirth just finished its third week with an estimate of $23.4 million. The two previous films in the World side of the franchise were already well over $300 million with $363 million and $332 million, respectfully, after 19 days. Rebirth stands at $276.1 million. This is also closely in line with Thor: Love & Thunder’s numbers of $283.3 million after 19 days and a $22.5 million third weekend, putting a final estimate for Rebirth at $335-345 million. The seventh film in the Jurassic series just crossed $648 million worldwide and is another success for Universal, but this appears to be the first of its films with World in the title to not reach a billion dollars. Like the movie itself, waning interest in the dinosaurs appears to be brewing, and the next film needs to up its game a bit. Then again, who’s going to argue with $750+ million?
On the heels of Scream, Kevin Williamson’s script for I Know What You Did Last Summer was released in 1997 two weeks before Halloween. It opened to $15.8 million and made a healthy $72.5 million on just a $17 million budget. The sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, was fast-tracked and released in 1998, two weeks after Halloween, and opened better with $16.5 million but sank fast to just $40 million, losing money on a $24 million budget. A direct-to-video sequel, I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, was released in 2006, and then an Amazon Prime series came and went in 2021. Now on the heels of the Scream revival, the reboot of I Know What You Did Last Summer opened to $13 million. That is a big disappointment, given this summer’s re-interest in Final Destination and the 28 Later series. Save for those two films, Sinners, and The Monkey, this is still a better horror opening than anything else released this year, though not good enough to crack the top 10 horror openings in July:
The Village ($50.7 million), The Conjuring ($41.8 million), The Haunting ($33.4 million), Insidious: The Red Door ($33.0 million), The Purge: Election Year ($31.5 million), The Purge: Anarchy ($29.8 million), What Lies Beneath ($29.7 million), Longlegs ($22.4 million), Lights Out ($21.6 million), Deep Blue Sea ($19.1 million)
IKWYDLS would have preferred a number over $17 million, as all of the horror films to have opened above that number in July (which also includes The First Purge and Species) went to gross over $60 million. The legacy reboot made another $11.6 million internationally. Still, budgeted at just $18 million, the film is already halfway to profitability, even if it likely won’t best the original sequel’s numbers domestically.
The law of diminishing returns has definitely applied to the Smurfs over the years, so perhaps a slight bit of comfort can be had in the fact that this latest iteration opened better than the last one. Not counting The Smurfs and the Magic Flute, which gave this writer his first taste of differing voicework from Saturday morning cartoon to big screen, The Smurfs in 2011 opened to $35.6 million and grossed not only $142.6 million domestic but over $563 million worldwide. The Smurfs 2 in 2013 opened and finished much lower than that ($17.5 million opening, $71 million domestic, $347.5 million worldwide). By the time Smurfs: The Lost Village came around in 2017, substituting Demi Lovato for Katy Perry as Smurfette, it earned a $13.2 million opening with a total haul of $45 million domestic and $197 million worldwide. Sony smartly dropped the budget with each version, and each turned a healthy profit.
Paramount clearly saw the reviews of those three movies, which add up to 73% TOTAL on the Tomatometer, and decided to limit press screenings around the country (Chicago, for one, saw none). So Smurfs, the 2025 edition, ends the weekend with a 21% on the Tomatometer and an $11 million start to its domestic run. The budget is down a couple mil ($58 million) from 2017 ($60 million). Family sequels in July have included Planes: Fire & Rescue ($17.5 million, $59.1 million finish) and Stuart Little 2 ($15.1 million, $65 million finish). Even The Boss Baby: Family Business in the pandemic summer of 2021 opened to $16 million and made $57.3 million. The Smurfs 2 was a July opener in this range too. But this is not even in the realm of Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, which opened to $12.2 million and finished with $43.5 million. Internationally, Smurfs added $22.6 million, and the film is entirely dependent on those numbers to turn a profit.
Warner Bros. and Apple Films’ F1: The Movie has lost about half its audience week-to-week. However, on its fourth weekend, it fell just 26% to $9.6 million. That upends our final estimate of $160-170 million, as its $153.6 million domestic total is in line with F9 ($154.9 million) after 24 days. It is now ahead of that film’s pace and its $7.6 million fourth weekend, so let’s up the estimate to a final domestic haul of $175-185 million. With $460 million globally, F1 became just the third film for Brad Pitt to gross over $300 million on the international side and will now hit $500 million. That number would equate to a victory on the most conservative estimates of its costs. But that is studio business. Numbers like this are always a positive for keeping the theatrical experience alive.
Universal and Dreamworks announced this week that their live-action remake of How To Train Your Dragon will be hitting Blu-ray on Aug. 12. It is already on PVOD. Meanwhile, it is still in the top 10, grossing $5.3 million in its sixth weekend and driving its total to $250.7 million. It should end up on the higher end of our estimates at around $260 million. It has also passed Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’s $584+ million globally ($195.8 million domestic) with $588+ million of its own, but it remains in position as the fourth-highest U.S.-based release of the year, now that Jurassic has passed it. At this point last year there were five films that had opened that would gross over half a billion. We are already at that number this year. Superman will eventually make it six.
Ari Aster has enjoyed a home with A24 since his breakthrough horror film Hereditary, which is still one of their biggest successes. It opened to $13.5 million in 2018 and finished with $44 million domestic and another $35.2 million overseas on just a $5.1 million budget. His follow up, Midsommar, also on a $5 million budget, opened to $6.5 million, finishing with $27.4 million domestic and $47.9 million worldwide. That led to a big $35 million budget for his three-hour anxiety-laden epic, Beau Is Afraid, the studio’s biggest misfire to date, making just $11.9 million globally. Now comes Eddington, his $25-million neo-Western set at the beginning of the 2020 pandemic. Both critics and audiences have been lukewarm on the film so far. A $4.2 million start ranks 15th on A24’s list of wide releases. (Midsommar is 10th on that list and Hereditary is second.)
Before we get to the good news for Disney, we have to deal with the bad. The House of Mouse is certainly bookending the summer with the best and the worst on the financial side, and it seems clear now that Pixar’s Elio can be labeled as the great failure of the season — and nothing else comes close. Produced on a $150 million budget, the film has cleared just $68.9 million to date on the domestic side and only another $60+ million internationally, which may not be Snow White numbers, but that’s still plenty of red in the ledger.
Disney’s Lilo & Stitch, on the other hand, crossed the billion-dollar mark this week. It is the first U.S. release to cross that line this year, and it could be the only one to do so this summer. Another $1.5 million brings the domestic side of that total to $418.1 million, getting it closer to A Minecraft Movie, which only grossed $765,693 in weekend nine and had a total of $422.96 million. L&S nearly doubling Minecraft’s ninth weekend is going to keep this conversation alive for a few weeks. The film is Hollywood’s global champion at the moment. It is very likely going to win the summer over Superman and Jurassic World: Rebirth and may not be done yet for the chase for the domestic crown… at least, not for a few months, before Wicked and Avatar get their shot.
And finally, closing out its run in the top 10 this week is Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later with $1.3 million. After five weekends, the film has grossed $68.7 million domestic. It should finish its run over $70 million, and with over $145 million worldwide, the film should at least break even and maybe even profit a couple bucks.
On the Vine: The Fantastic Four Take Their First Steps
Hollywood cleared the deck again next week for the next in the Marvel line of cinematic offerings. Deadpool & Wolverine was a monster hit in this slot last year. Will The Fantastic Four: First Steps finally become the version of this comic to break out beyond its artistic and financial limitations of the past. Can the fourth (released) version of Marvel’s First Family be the charm, or will it be the latest disappointment for the MCU?
Full List of Box Office Results: July 18-20, 2025
- Superman – $57.2 million ($235.0 million total)
- Jurassic World: Rebirth – $23.4 million ($276.1 million total)
- I Know What You Did Last Summer – $13.0 million ($13.0 million total)
- Smurfs – $11.0 million ($11.0 million total)
- F1: The Movie – $9.6 million ($153.6 million total)
- How To Train Your Dragon – $5.3 million ($250.7 million total)
- Eddington – $4.2 million ($4.2 million total)
- Elio – $2.0 million ($68.9 million total)
- Lilo & Stitch – $1.5 million ($418.1 million total)
- 28 Years Later – $1.3 million ($68.7 million total)
Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on Business First AM with Angela Miles and his Movie Madness Podcast.
Thumbnail image by ©Warner Bros. Pictures
