Superman Defeats New Legacy Slasher & A24’s Divisive Western As DC Movie Passes Huge Milestone

Superman is dominating a crowded domestic box office field. Throughout July so far, there has only been one major wide release per weekend, with Jurassic World Rebirth kicking off the month and James Gunn’s Superman debuting on July 11. However, this is not the case for the weekend of July 18, which occupies a lull between superhero movie releases.

Ahead of the impending debut of Marvel’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps on July 25, three major releases are jockeying for attention in the interim. These titles are the Ari Aster satirical COVID Western Eddington, the slasher legacy sequel I Know What You Did Last Summer, and the family franchise installment Smurfs.

Per Deadline, as of Sunday morning, Superman is projected to take No. 1 at the domestic box office for the second weekend in a row with a 3-day sophomore weekend haul of $57.2 million. This gives it a cumulative haul that sees it becoming just the seventh movie of 2025 to pass the $200 million domestic milestone.

Superman’s weekend 2 drop of 54% is also the best for the superhero genre so far in 2025, beating Marvel’s Thunderbolts* (-56%) and Captain America: Brave New World (-68%).

Meanwhile, the new releases are failing to compete anywhere near that level. Smurfs is projected to debut with $12 million. I Know What You Did Last Summer is only poised to come in slightly higher, scraping together a 3-day debut of $13 million, while Eddington is set to open outside the Top 5 entirely, landing at No. 7 with just $4.25 million.

The new releases’ debuts are underwhelming enough that they have also slipped below the third weekend of Jurassic World Rebirth. The Scarlett Johansson-led standalone sequel maintained its position at No. 2 for the second weekend in a row. See the full domestic Top 5 chart for the weekend below:

Even though the new releases aren’t performing at a particularly impressive level, the fact that both I Know What You Did Last Summer and Smurfs found places in the Top 5 means that two titles from last weekend have been pushed out.

Pixar’s Elio, which was formerly at No. 5, fell all the way down to No. 8 with a week-on-week drop of 49%. Meanwhile, the live-action How to Train Your Dragon remake, which was at No. 4 last weekend, has only fallen two spots, hitting No. 6 with a projected $5.35 million total at a nice and easy 32% drop.

What This Means For The Weekend’s New Releases

Because 2025’s I Know What You Did Last Summer only has a reported budget of $18 million, the movie is likely on track to turn a profit by the end of its theatrical run. However, this opening weekend is still a bad sign for the four-film horror franchise.

It will be coming in below the debut weekends of both previous installments in the franchise that received theatrical releases. The franchise’s previous low was the original 1997 movie, which had a 3-day debut of $15.8 million. While it exceeds the legacy sequel’s debut even in the raw numbers, when adjusted for inflation that total comes to roughly $31.5 million.

Below, see a breakdown of the box office performance of the I Know What You Did Last Summer movies:

However, the outlook is even more dour for Smurfs and Eddington, which have even more ground to cover. In addition to opening below I Know What You Did Last Summer, both movies have considerably higher price tags. The family outing comes with a reported budget of $58 million, while the Ari Aster movie reportedly cost $25 million.

While Smurfs could have long legs in theaters, as do many family movies, it could also make up for any deficit with merchandising. Eddington’s prospects are more opaque, however.

It has at least exceeded any individual weekend of Ari Aster’s previous movie, 2023’s Beau is Afraid, which grossed $12.3 million against a reported $35 million budget. However, even if it earns double the gross of Beau, it will just barely make its budget back, let alone hit its estimated break-even point, which could be as high as $62.5 million.

Our Take On The Weekend Box Office

July Needs To Wait For Another Blockbuster

The fact that the weekend’s three new releases premiered between the debuts of two superhero tentpoles means that studios and distributors most likely never expected any of them to be major summer blockbusters. However, these unimpressive opening weekends mean that the upcoming Fantastic Four: First Steps could sweep them almost entirely off the board when it debuts.

While July will be propped up by Fantastic Four, Jurassic World Rebirth, and Superman, the new releases join an unfortunate roster of mid-level summer 2025 debuts that have made less of an impression on audiences than they probably should have, which is a list that includes Karate Kid: Legends, Ballerina, Elio, and M3GAN 2.0.

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Source: Deadline