Superman (2025)

When Superman was released this summer, Kal-El faced an uphill battle in fictional Metropolis as well as at the real-world box office. By most measurements, however, the first movie in James Gunn's DC Universe qualified as a hit.

The franchise reboot had to shoulder some heavy lifting: introducing a new Clark Kent and battling a force stronger than Nicholas Hoult's Lex Luthor -- the movie-going public's increased superhero apathy.

But Superman topped our charts for the first two weeks of its global release and returned to the top 10 in September as it hit streaming.

Soon after notching more than $600 million worldwide, a sequel, Man of Tomorrow, jumped the DC Universe production line and landed a July 2027 release date, with David Corenswet back as the red-blue blur.