It feels as though it’s\u00a0getting harder and harder for comic book movies to turn a profit in theaters. Just this year, out of the four major superhero movies released, two of them\u2014Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts*\u2014were significant financial disappointments. The other two\u2014Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps\u2014fared much better, but still arguably struggled to reach the level of success its respective studios had hoped for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Between the two projects, Superman’s success has specifically\u00a0been a topic of much disagreement,\u00a0with the main debate being whether or not the movie made a profit during its theatrical run. Now, a new report states\u00a0the film ended up making, and will continue to make, an impressive amount of\u00a0profit for Warner Bros. Discovery. Forbes<\/a> published an article that speculates on the potential routes the DCU could take.<\/p>\n There, the outlet stated\u00a0that James Gunn’s DCU feature\u00a0has so far made $100 million in profit, and is well on its way to earn $150 million\u00a0in all. This is somewhat similar to a previous report from Variety<\/a>, which stated the film was expected to make a profit of $125 million.\u00a0With that said, it was recently revealed<\/a>\u00a0that Superman’s box office revenue was offset by Warner Bros. Discovery’s\u00a0traditional-TV losses.\u00a0<\/p>\n Keep in mind, the amounts reported by Forbes in this latest article are\u00a0likely not referring to theatrical profits. Instead, the numbers given\u00a0are probably\u00a0from\u00a0ancillary markets, such as\u00a0home media, merchandising,\u00a0streaming and ad partnerships. To provide context for why that may be, in October, Forbes (via Comicbook.com<\/a>)\u00a0broke\u00a0down the profitability of the project.\u00a0In it, the outlet explained that ticket earnings are usually split 50-50 with theaters (it’s not a precise metric, but the split is the most commonly accepted in the industry to calculate theatrical profits).<\/p>\n