James Gunn’s Superman laid an egg this weekend in China despite the director’s fawning over the communist nation while promoting the film, that played in over 55,000 Middle Kingdom screens.
The big budget reboot is crucially important to the future of the DC universe of films. It opened fairly strong on Friday, but immediately tumbled to seventh place by Sunday. It is a terrible fall from grace, giving Superman one of the worst opening weekends in China of any superhero film in modern history.
The film debuted at number three in the Chinese market and brought in $2.4 million on Friday. But by Saturday it quickly fell to fifth place. The film may be on track to earning about $6.5 million to 6.7 million over the three day debut, Koimoi reported..
It is now projected to make about $217 million world-wide, which would not be a breakeven point on its reported $400 million budget (including promotion). It has been estimated that Superman would have to make $700 million to begin making a profit, though Gunn has disputed that figure.
The dismal debut in China comes despite Gunn’s blatant attempt to ingratiate himself to Chinese audiences in a pre-opening trip to the communist nation.
In a visit to Beijing, Gunn swore that Superman could not have happened without China and insisted that China is “the most important place” for him.
“Superman is a movie for everybody across the world, and it’s especially for the people of China,” Gunn said during his visit to the country. “China is the most important place for me in terms of where I learned to make movies and how I love to make movies.”
American filmmaker/director James Gunn (L) and Peter Safran, British-American film producer, attend the premiere of film “Superman” on July 10, 2025 in Beijing, China. (VCG/VCG via Getty Images)
Gunn went on to claim that China is “important” to the entire genre of filmmaking, and said, “It’s so important, and this movie would not exist without the great filmmakers of Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland. So, I thank you so much for that.”
The director further bloviated that China is “like his home.”
“Even though I’ve only been to China once before, it’s like coming home to me,” Gunn gushed. “These are the movies that fueled this — it does not exist without this.”
He even went on to claim that he tries to fill western movies with “Chinese storytelling.”
“If I exist for any reason, it’s to be able to have stories that I tell using Chinese and Eastern ways of storytelling and mixing that with Western ways of storytelling,” Gunn expounded. “That’s why it’s so important to me, and it’s what moved me to be a filmmaker.”
All of Gunn’s fawning over Chinese values and its history of filmmaking, though, does not seem to have moved audiences to turn out to the theaters.
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