Summary

• Superman is legendary, but not every movie has matched his super status at the box office.
• Christopher Reeve's Superman still stands tall, setting the standard for all superhero films.
• Batman v Superman proves that adding Batman to the mix makes box office magic, even if critics disagree.

There can be no question about it: Superman is the superhero, and without this DC Comics icon, there might not be other caped do-gooders to fill the pages of comic books and excite audiences on the silver screen. As Superman turns 86, audiences can expect a new depiction of the iconic DC Comics hero with James Gunn’s Superman hitting theaters on July 11th, 2025.

With a new Superman movie ready to fly into theaters, it’s worth looking back on the Man of Steel’s previous attempts at the movies, and how the box office of every Superman movie might determine the fate that awaits James Gunn’s version for the DCU. Superman may be extremely popular, but can the highest-grossing Superman movie come close to that of Batman, or even Marvel?

7 Superman 4: The Quest for Peace

Worldwide Gross: $30,281,020

• Release Date: 24 July 1987
• Director: Sidney J. Furie
• Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score: 10%
• Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 16%

Superman tasks himself with the quest for peace by dismantling the nuclear arsenals of global superpowers. This global interference does not go unnoticed, and Lex Luthor creates Nuclear Man, a villainous pet that has the powers to rival Superman to bring forth a powerful nemesis in the last Christopher Reeve Superman movie.

Superman 4: The Quest for Peace showed that perhaps it was time for Superman to leave the big screen for a while. The movie didn’t fair great with fans and critics, and the box office results prove that. There are a multitude of factors, including a lackluster villain and script, complications in the budget thanks to Cannon Films, and a general cheapness expected from an early comic book TV series, not a movie.

6 Superman 3

Worldwide Gross: $80,250,623

• Release Date: 19 July 1983
• Director: Richard Lester
• Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score: 29%
• Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 23%

Superman intervenes with a computer genius who swears to destroy him after foiling his plans. Christopher Reeve is still just as great as ever, but nostalgia hasn’t been kind to Superman 3 and its story which has an over-reliance on camp and comedy.

Audiences might have grown tired of Superman by 1983, as Superman 3 wasn’t the most successful in the franchise, or beloved like previous entries. Superman 3 was cheaper and tried to replicate the success of previous movies simply by replicating them and not trying anything new, whilst also bringing about unnecessary slapstick humor with comedy icons like Richard Pryor in the mix.

5 Superman 2

Worldwide Gross: $216,385,706

• Release Date: 9 April 1981
• Director: Richard Lester
• Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score: 83%
• Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 76%

Sacrificing his powers to be with Lois Lane, Clark Kent must face the consequences of a world without Superman after three Kryptonian criminals make their way to Earth to begin their conquest. Superman 2 is a fun sequel, but a tad messy, as original director Richard Donner was replaced by Richard Lester, creating a more campy fun sequel than the originally proposed and shot movie.

Superman 2 still had a fairly decent time at the box office, but it wasn’t nearly as much as its predecessor. It’s still the definitive way to put comic characters on screen, and of course, kids will love it enough to make Superman 2 a success that adjusted for inflation would have made around $800,000,000 in 2024.

4 Superman: The Movie

Worldwide Gross: $300,200,000

• Release Date: 13 December 1978
• Director: Richard Donner
• Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score: 94%
• Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 86%

Superman: The Movie is seen as one of the greatest family/adventure movies out there, and a blueprint for the character going forward on-screen and beyond. Superman featured the origins of Kal-El and Clark Kent to become the smiling and charming Superman that everyone knows and loves, and that’s aided by the charisma of Christopher Reeve.

It’s no surprise that Superman did so well in 1978. The sci-fi vibes came strongly off of Star Wars hype in 1977, and children adored Superman as a comic book hero. The film was fun and light-hearted, and audiences could believe a man could fly. Adjusted for inflation, the original Superman would have made over a billion dollars in today’s market.

3 Superman Returns

Worldwide Gross: $391,081,192

• Release Date: 14 July 2006
• Director: Bryan Singer
• Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score: 74%
• Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 60%

Continuing the legacy of Christopher Reeve’s Superman, Brandon Routh steps into the red boots, as Superman returns to Earth after a five-year absence to explore the remains of Krypton. With Superman’s long absence, he must once again prove himself as the hero that Metropolis needs and wants, and show to a changing world that there’s still room for a Superman.

Taking audiences back into Superman’s role as Earth’s hero, and the wonder of Metropolis, Superman Returns does a fairly decent job at portraying the hero, and Brandon Routh fills the red boots wonderfully. Unfortunately, the budget was a little too high for the box office returns to see a sequel, and most of the scenes that didn’t involve Superman’s heroics were a tad underwhelming.

2 Man of Steel

Worldwide Gross: $670,145,518

• Release Date: 12 June 2013
• Director: Zack Snyder
• Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score: 56%
• Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 75%

Superman returns to the big screen in an all-new reboot, with Henry Cavill wearing the red boots and red cape. This reboot takes a more serious tone with Superman, and Henry Cavill has big boots to fill after the likes of Christopher Reeve. The origin story has Clark Kent discover his Kryptonian heritage and put on the red cape to save his world from war-mongering Kryptonian conquerors like General Zod, with riveting action scenes and emotional flashbacks to Clark’s upbringing.

Man of Steel comes hot off the heels of The Dark Knight Rises, where Christopher Nolan remains heavily involved in the story and producer credits at the start of the DCEU. Bringing audiences back to Superman wasn’t easy, especially when most critics took issue with the lack of humor and bright colors that had been attributed to Superman in the past, but this reboot was going for a fresh revamp of the character with serious tones and aesthetics.

1 Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Worldwide Gross: $874,360,194

• Release Date: 25 March 2016
• Director: Zack Snyder
• Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score: 29%
• Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 63%

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice collies the worlds of Superman and Batman for the first time ever in live-action. The two characters have always been the World’s Finest, but for their first movie together in the DCEU, they would have an epic clash, as an older Batman faces the responsibility of killing Superman, who he deems a potential threat to the entire human race, all whilst Superman himself deals a species that doesn’t want him and others that worship him.

The highest-grossing Superman film is Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which proves that when Batman is thrown into anything, it usually sells. Sadly, Superman still hasn’t featured in a movie that has crossed a billion dollars, and Batman v Superman was just shy of it, missing the mark by under $130,000,000. There could be a few notable factors, like how the critic and audience scores were notoriously low, and how the film took a risky approach to make Superman less prominent and more dreary.

Source: Box Office Mojo