So you might have heard that a certain superhero was making a return to cinema screens across the US this weekend. You might also have heard that the last son of Krypton was aiming for super heroic opening figures and using his incredible power of leaping weekdays in a single bound to get a jump on the competition by opening Wednesday instead of Friday. How did that gamble work out? Probably not as well as he – or his studio overlords – would have hoped.
Still, an $84 million launch for Superman Returns is nothing to be sniffed at, even if it did take a couple of extra days to make it. That’s better than Batman and more than Kong. But not quite in the same league as the X-Men. This coming weekend sees a challenge from no lesser man than Jack Sparrow, with Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest expected to sweep all competition before it.
There was one other problem for Superman (and no, we don’t mean Lex Luthor) - women weren’t tempted by the advertising campaign that put the Lois/Superman relationship front and centre, preferring instead to see Meryl Streep verbally tearing strips from Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada. The adaptation of Lauren Weisberger’s novel set in the turbulent, high-gloss world of fashion publishing made $27 million this first weekend.
The success of the newcomers meant everyone else shifted down one place or more. Click saw its audience drop off sharply, though it clung to third. Cars moved down to fourth and Nacho Libre took over fifth.
Showing staying power was low-key love-fest The Lake House, which managed to hold position and make $4.5 million this weekend, a feat even more impressive when you consider its target audience had a new choice in town. The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift continued to motor around the lower end of the charts, just above Waist Deep, The Break-Up and money-hoover The Da Vinci Code, which is now at $209 million in the States alone.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it's… The charts!
Title
Weekend Gross
Total Gross
Week #
1
**Superman Returns
** $52,150,000
$84208,000
1
2
The Devil Wears Prada $27,000,000
$27,000,000
1
3
Click
$19,400,000
$77,918,000
2
4
Cars
$14,035,000
$182,056,000
4
5
Nacho Libre
$6,186,000
$64,959,000
3
6
The Lake House
$4,510,000
$38,735,000
3
7
The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift
$4,432,000
$51,666,000
3
8
Waist Deep
$3,312,000
$15,175,000
2
9
The Break-Up $2,830,000
$110,069,000
5
10
The Da Vinci Code
$2,300,000
$209,793,000
7