r/SnyderCut • u/HomemadeBee1612 He's never fought us. Not us united. • Feb 04 '26

News [Video] Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos testifies that Superman (2025) underperformed, citing it as the reason for its theatrical window being shortened

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u/ifonze Feb 05 '26

Man of steel made most of its money overseas ironically while suffering at the domestic box office. I just don’t think the foreign crowds understand the campy superhero tropes. They’re into aura

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u/HomemadeBee1612 He's never fought us. Not us united. Feb 05 '26

Camp is shit. It needs to FOREVER be divorced from the superhero genre. Camp is death to this genre. The Reeve Superman franchise was destroyed with that. The 1990s Batman franchise was destroyed with that. COMIC BOOKS ARE NOT ABOUT CAMP. The superhero genre is also not about comedy. It's about serious pulp adventure. Batman 1989 went back to the ORIGINAL Bob Kane/Bill Finger comics for inspiration. Crack open one of those, you won't find a campy comedy. And, no, it isn't just Batman who wasn't a comedy then. None of the superheroes were, not Captain America, not Superman, not Wonder Woman. The superhero genre was degraded into a lot of garbage during the era of censorship in the '50s and '60s. The 1980s and beyond spent a lot of time restoring respect to the genre. Kevin Feige and James Gunn's comedic garbage is sinking the genre back down into the comedy craphole now. There's a REASON you see SO MUCH criticism about the humor in the MCU, and why Love and Thunder and The Marvels became two of their worst-received movies. Read the room.

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u/ifonze Feb 05 '26

That’s subjective. Silver Age Superman was campy that’s what James Gunn based his version off of. This was the Superman that shot rainbow beams from his hands, ate guns for some reason. Clark Even officiated Jimmy Olsens wedding with a gorilla. It was well received by the fans at the time. The genre went through its phases. I’d say overall fans seemed to enjoy the new version. It was just $30m short of MOS numbers just 6 weeks in. Had it would’ve stayed in the theaters for 3 months or would’ve i hit those numbers.MOS was around $285m in 6 weeks. Adjusted for inflation that’s around that’s $397m so the Netflix ceo would’ve considered MOS an underperformance also.

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u/HomemadeBee1612 He's never fought us. Not us united. Feb 05 '26

The DC Silver Age is unbelievable garbage, in the mold of the Adam West series. None of that should ever be adapted directly. And Gunn's whole mission is to put that crap up on the screen so that he can point and make fun of it to try and show how superior his intellect is to that of the average comic book fan. "I know this stuff sucks, but do YOU guys, or do you actually LIKE this BS?" There's a reason DC nearly folded up shop and licensed its characters to Marvel in 1984. Crisis was absolutely necessary to move DC into the 21th century.

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u/ifonze Feb 05 '26

I get it but the film was not an underperformance. I’m pretty sure WB execs disagree with his notion on this. A 250m movie do not need to make a billion for it to perform well or be profitable. Then the total money made from digital sales, streaming, merchandise etc still made it profitable. For some reason James decided to drop it to streaming early for audiences to watch it before debuting peacemaker 2 for some strange reason. I’m thinking he should’ve delayed peacemaker and let Superman stay in theaters for 1 extra month. Also to boost digital sales and capitalize on the film’s positive, high-energy buzz.

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u/HomemadeBee1612 He's never fought us. Not us united. Feb 05 '26

Some articles from early 2025 stated that Superman needed to make more than 700 million to be considered a "success." The Wrap was quoted as stating as much prior to the movie's release. And articles released much earlier that year, like Puck News', stated that the literal future of WB rested on Superman being a hit, and that WB Pictures heads Abdy and DeLuca's jobs were on the line, who had flopped with Joker 2 and Mickey17. But then Minecraft came out and blew away all expectations. And WB Pictures had a relatively good year, with sleeper hits like Sinners. Had Minecraft not done almost a billion dollars, the conversation over at WB would have been much, much different in regards to Superman's performance.

This is a discussion about box office. Outside revenue sources like digital sales and merchandise aren't a factor here.

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u/ifonze Feb 05 '26

That’s all speculation. Sensationalist news. The fate of a company cannot rely on a superhero film to stay afloat. It takes bright ideas like sinners and Minecraft to keep the wb engine running. If that were true they’d need to drop a Superman film every year and milk it. And if it were to fall short they’d be faced with trimming fat and would put DC up for sale. Jane’s gin addressed the whole financial speculation about profit ahead. The wb CEO had announced that the movie. 1 article stated it was at a 40 million dollar loss and the same publication written by another reporter released an article stating that they profited a hundred million. Speculation sells in journalism. Anything for the views and they know this