WEEKLY RECAP #115: "Superman" Debut, AMC Ticket Discount & MORE!
7/6/25 -- 7/12/25
Gunn Control
The latest player in the 2025 Summer Movie Season has swooped into theaters: James Gunn’s Superman, which stars David Corenswet as the titular caped crusader. Assuming everything goes well, this blockbuster will be the start of a new DC Comics-based cinematic universe. (This comes after the unofficially-named DCEU ended in a wet fart with 2023’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.) In that regard, Warner Bros. doesn’t have too much to worry about: Superman is tracking to make approximately $115-120 million for its domestic opening weekend, which would be the highest opening for a superhero movie since last year’s mega-hit Deadpool & Wolverine.
Given that Superman is a revamp of one of the most iconic superheroes of all time, and that it’s the first entry in a major new franchise, and that its director just finished a near-decade-long run with Marvel (DC’s main opposition), and that Marvel’s upcoming The Fantastic Four is coming out in two weeks to rival it at the box office… there’s been a lot of anticipation and discourse. Any of you who know anything about Comic Book Twitter, though, know that “discourse” in these spaces translates to brainless team sports in which everyone goes to demoralizing, cruel lengths to defend movies and filmmakers they believe they *have* to like. The terrifying horde of Zack Snyder stans — the same psychos that got a scene from the Snyder Cut of Justice League to play at the Oscars by spamming the Academy’s online polls — have been actively rooting against Superman so viciously that Rick and Morty had to release a scene of Snyder and Gunn wholesomely working out their differences. (Now, this may strike some readers as harsh, but I believe everyone involved in this story should die.)
You know who *isn’t* losing his mind about James Gunn’s Superman, though? James Gunn! Indeed, the white-haired madlad who directed the MCU’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy seems fairly confident that his efforts will pay off here too. This past week, he told everyone to calm the fuck down about reporting on the film’s profitably, right *after* openly calling Superman a political story about an immigrant and telling anyone upset by that to screw off. (Pretty low-effort ragebait, if you ask me — so you better believe that Fox News took it hook, line, and sinker!) Thankfully, the critics are on Gunn’s side, with Superman having received positive reviews denoting it as a promising new start for DC with a delightfully buoyant spirit despite an overstuffed story.
Superman’s long-term performance at the box office will likely determine what the Warner Bros. blockbuster slate will look like for the next few years. Most people are refreshed by its lighter, more optimistic take on the Man of Steel, and even if I personally thought it was just decent, I too am refreshed — that is, by Gunn’s zero-fucks-given attitude to all of the usual superhero-discourse trappings that fans and the media machine alike have tried to trap him in. He’s right: enough about Zack Snyder and box office profitability and woke-ness! Just fucking watch the movie, form your own opinion and be normal about it! Please! Do what I’m doing, and sit back to cherish all of the stupid Gunn-ified hashtags that Superman fans have been posting recently — like #IReachedForTheGunn, or #TheGunnDidntJam, or #GunnInMyMouth. That right there is good shit… keep it coming, guys.
“Somehow, spending money feels good in a place like this.”
Theaters have been struggling extra-hard since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the unstoppable forces of streaming and strikes have pressed against the unmovable object of rising ticket prices from inflation. This week, though, the unstoppable object budged a bit. AMC Theaters, the largest cinema chain in the world, just added a new discount for those who subscribe to their AMC Stubs rewards program: movie tickets will now be half-off on Tuesdays, as well as Wednesdays, which were already 50% under the program. (Concessions will also be discounted on those days for Stubs members, too — what a steal!)
Exhibitors are usually stingier than Mr. Krabs when it comes to altering ticket prices, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and if there’s ever been a desperate time for cinemas, it’s right fucking now. The choice to make tickets for Tuesdays and Wednesdays half-off for premium members is strategic, as it incentivizes more people to rush into theaters on what would typically be the slowest days of the week. In theory, this will get more butts in seats without cutting too much into the majority of AMC’s profits, which come from the weekend box office. Making tickets half-off on Fridays or Saturdays would be MoviePass-level financial suicide, but doing so early in the work week will likely draw in new crowds that would otherwise not have come at all without the discount. And the numbers are on AMC’s side, as Variety explains:
“Many of the nation’s multiplexes have long offered a deep discount on Tuesdays, which has in turn become one of the most popular times of the week for moviegoing. Surveys have suggested that people are cost-conscious about the price of tickets. And since the box office remains down 25% from 2019, the last pre-pandemic year, AMC is extending the deals in the hopes of keeping auditoriums booked and busy midweek rather than just on the weekends.”
I am over the moon to see this investment on behalf of AMC. While there have been issues plaguing cinemas left and right in recent years, the most glaring and constant issue hasn’t been the strikes, or Netflix, or audience fatigue: it’s been the fucking prices. Going to the movies is so goddamn expensive these days, especially if you live in a major city where the price of a single adult ticket can reach as high as $18-20 dollars, depending on the theater! And once you get inside, the price of snacks is even *more* egregious! $10 for a medium popcorn? Fuhgeddaboudit!
Navigating which price decreases will draw in more folks without derailing their bottom line will be a process for each chain, but it has to start somewhere, and luring in folks with extra money to spend and nothing to do on Tuesday nights is a lovely place to start. People are not tired of going to the movies — they’re tired of having to pay an arm and a leg to get in. Like, this shit used to cost a nickel, people! How are you somehow making me wish I was living in the 1910s?! Sure, I don’t want to contract polio, but I also don’t want to be bankrupted by seeing Sinners for a second time in theaters! You see the dilemma I’m in, right?
In Like a Lion, Out Like a Legend
Nothing has been finalized or even specified yet, but word on the street is that Legendary Entertainment — the media firm and production company behind franchises like Dune, The Hangover and “The Monsterverse” — is looking to acquire Lionsgate Studios. This would probably be a relief for the folks at Lionsgate, who have really been getting their cheeks clapped at the box office recently. (If you’re new here, I advise you read my breakdown in Weekly Recap #75 to get the full picture.) If this deal goes through, it would combine Legendary’s assets with Liongate’s library, which includes IP like The Hunger Games and John Wick. Legendary is on a roll right now, having grossed over $20 billion worldwide in 2024, so an acquisition like this might be just what the doctor ordered. When all else fails, get inherited by the people who greenlit the “chicken jockey” movie. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they know how to make a hit.
Formula Win
Multiple tech giants have been investing heavily in the Streaming Wars, each hoping to eventually cultivate a profitable entertainment studio that can be added to its ever-growing monopoly. Apple in particular has been funneling so much fucking money into its original movies and shows, and the returns have been… mixed, to say the least. On one hand, Apple TV+ is the host to multiple hits in original television programming, such as Severance and Ted Lasso. On the other hand, Apple has given wide releases to five big-budget feature films, and almost all of them have performed poorly. (For the record: Killers of the Flower Moon was critically acclaimed, Napoleon and Fly Me to the Moon received mixed reviews, and Argylle was just straight-up ass.) The culprit for these flops were inflated budgets that were not justified for their respective films… and this trend certainly extends to their latest release, F1, which cost a staggering $250 million to produce and another $100 million to market.
The good news, however, is that F1 appears to be breaking Apple’s streak of bombs. It’s generated close to $300 million globally after a week-and-a-half of release, and still has some time left at the box office, which means that breaking even is more than possible. Again, the massive production costs have made this achievement difficult, but the fact that Apple finally has a movie with wide appeal making tons of money in theaters (especially in IMAX screenings) is viewed by many, including geniuses like myself, as a step in the right direction. Also, it’s worth reminding all of you that Apple isn’t a regular Hollywood studio that runs the risk of being sunk by too many high-profile flops in a row. It’s a tech company with a market cap of $3 trillion. To put that into perspective, they could waste $100 million on an original movie 15,000 times in a row and still have half their company left. And, in my opinion, a company that absurdly powerful being allowed to exist in the first place is… pretty cool!
Corporations like Apple and Amazon can keep burning money on their entertainment endeavors as much as they like, which really frustrates me, y’know? Sure, this carelessness with spending is similar to how Netflix operates in a way, and that company at least occasionally produces fantastic movies and shows amidst their never-ending stream of original slop content. But damn, Apple — if you can do whatever you want, why aren’t you funneling more cash toward crazy shit? At this point, just host a raffle once a year where you pick a random aspiring filmmaker and give them $50-100 million to do whatever they want. You won’t miss that money, and you know it. You’ll make back all the losses by introducing an AI-powered Bitmoji sex scene generator, or something. Just fund the fucking arts, for Christ’s sake.