@toplel: It did qualify as a success financially which is the yard stick Hollywood uses to measure whether a character can carry a franchise. Also even Superman's biggest box office flop to date "Quest for Peace" was technically a modest success for the people involved and that movie was the most awful thing Superman has ever been part of. He's already had a successful franchise under his belt and he is whether people like to admit it or not the most famous super hero on Earth and many will see any movie he's in just for that fact alone.

@toplel: Okay the movie needed 300 million to break even. It made near 700 mill in the theaters which is a more than 100% profit which qualifies as a smash hit. It is currently doing great in dvd/bluray sales meaning it has netted nearly a billion dollars overall for WB. How successful does it have to be to meet your standards cause they seem pretty damn high if that doesnt qualify.

@toplel: See this is the whole problem with the Super hero genre right here in your statement. Any other movie that did as well as MOS did at the box office would be hailed as a smashing success and guaranteed sequels but since its Superman everyone acts like since it didn't make a billion dollars it somehow failed. You're setting the bar too damn high, the fact is Avengers, Iron Man 3, and TDKR are exceptions not the rule. Most of these movies aren't as successful as MOS let alone those 3.

@toplel: So basically you're saying that it failed because you didn't like it. In which case its pointless to argue here but facts are facts, it was enough of a hit to qualify for a sequel or two with or without Batman, and they didn't add Batman to save Superman's franchise, they did it to test the waters for a JLA movie because WB still hasn't worked up the nerve to jump in and do that yet.

I think that yes, Supes can carry on his franchise. First movie was successful reboot; it did well in world-wide release and gave WB its money back with percents.

Wow... So much ignorance in this thread and it's relatively new too...

Ok some "facts" for you all. MoS made a profit on its own of about $70 million. Add in the sponsorship deals that reduces costs overall and that figure jumps to around about the $200 million figure. That's AFTER $150 million in marketing and giving the theatre's their cut of about $220 million. With the exception of Spider-man, no other CBM franchise has started that strong. So to say it doesn't stack up to other CBM'S is a gross falsehood. Profits aside, just comparing gross worldwide box office takings...

Iron Man didn't make more than MoS till his 3rd solo outing and that's AFTER Disney took over and after the Avengers influence too.

Batman only pulled greater numbers than that on TDK and TDKR, both sequels, and the primary catalyst (TDK) was boosted by the Heath Ledger controversy and death. It just happened to be awesome enough that it flowed into TDKR.

X-men is yet to see figures like that at all.

Thus far NONE of the Marvel films other than IM3 and Avengers have pulled those numbers. Thor 2 might. It's still going but it's got a bit of competition now so it's numbers are dropping pretty quick. I mean Catching Fire? Damn... Bad timing there... But still it's made really good money, more than enough already (thanks in part to earlier release world wide) and will run for good few more weeks still. I'll be surprised personally if it cracks $700 million, but it stands a good chance of topping MoS (then again, it needs another $120 million to do that, which may be hard at this point in the year). Again though, sequel, will be similar to IM2 in its overall box office, and is utilising Avengers fame and fortune, a massive help.

Spider-man is the ONLY CBM franchise to consistently make high numbers with ASM being it's weakest outing yet at $750 million.

And let's not forget for most CBM'S $400 million is enough to be a "success". But because of only 5 CBM's out of literally dozens, suddenly MoS didn't live up to expectations? Considering the miserable failings of Superman Returns, I'm pretty sure WB was more than happy with how MoS performed.

And also, it's impossible for a film to make those numbers without the audience going to repeat views. So yes all "facts" considered WB would have had no questions that Superman can carry a franchise. Even with critical reception. Note that fan ratings are a lot higher than critics. This sequels inclusion of Batman is not an indicator of lack of faith, it's a quickstep to play catch up thanks to the shared universe delays caused by Nolan's Batman trilogy. Nothing more. The only Superman movie I consider more successful than MoS is the original, mainly because it's $300 million in 1978 is pretty much the equivalent of a modern film making $1 billion. Which for the record isn't very common. Of all the hundreds of films released every year, only 17 films ever have cracked that mark, 4 of which are CBM's with two going to Marvel and two to WB. And considering that WB has the better ROI, in any companies books that's actually "winning".

Oh, also animated and kids films are pretty much the biggest earning genre overall and MoS did those numbers facing 2 sequels of massively successful franchises... It did fine on its first outing.

@toplel: Critics hate a lot of things that are successful enough to carry a franchise. Critics rip every Adam Sandler movie since Happy Gilmore to shreds yet they still usually end up considered successful despite being horrible, quality of film has absolutely nothing to do with whether it gets a sequel, all that matters is that its financially successful which MOS, like it or not, was. Look at the Pirates of the Caribbean movies those get worse as they go yet they have made more money each time despite that. Now I personally liked MOS but I completely understand why some don't but my opinion on the film doesn't alter the fact that it made more than enough money to qualify for a sequel. In point of fact aside from Avengers and Iron Man 3 it was more financially successful than almost all the Marvel Studios movies.

@wishiwassuperman:

You are being defensive for no reason. You make good points but there is plenty of reason to expect this film should have pulled more figures.

When Batman Begins came out it was on the back of an abomination of a film (Batman and Robin). It was a critically acclaimed film and easy to see batman could carry on the franchise after the hint at the joker at the end of the film. Then TDK and TDKR pulled in incredibly successful figures.

1. MoS came during a period where CBM were insanely popular and were the movies to see in the summer. It came just off the back of previous films Avengers, TDKR and Iron Man 3. Even Amazing Spiderman, which pulled more money than MoS.

2. After the Avengers this was expected to be the launch of a shared DC Movie Universe, and was highly anticipated to be the start of something awesome. This could have pulled loads more repeat views with a decent cameo or a better showing of a shared universe instead of just all the easter eggs.

3. It's fricking Superman. After Superman Returns, I expect a lot of people were pumped to see this. To not be able to pull the same kind of money that Fast and Furious 6 pulls should definitely be seen as disappointing in my eyes.

4. This movie was released in 3D. Think about how much it would have pulled if it didn't sell 3D tickets.

Considering the costs, I reckon 800 would be closer to the mark WB woould have been hoping for from this film.

And let's be honest, whether or not Batman was intended to be in the next film or not. Whether they felt Superman could carry his franchise or not. Batman is in the sequel for the money. He is the number one reason the majority of people will be going to see this sequel. They could even not have Superman show up in his sequel, just Batman, and it would still draw in near to 1 billion. So WB must surely be looking for more money.

Yes, he can and will carry his own franchise. Just because his next film's a team-up doesn't mean he won't have anymore solo movies.

Considering the last Superman movie was a complete failure and the negative momentum MoS had to overcome, the movie did pretty damn good - especially for a reboot/first movie.

The only other movies that beat it (that wasn't a sequel) were both Spider-Man movies.

Batman is in the sequel because WB wants to get team ups faster. They announced Batman/Superman while MoS was still in theaters. This had been in the works long before MoS had been released. Ben Affleck was casted as Batman back in like February I believe. The script was all ready done before MoS was released. So they had more in mind than money.

That being said, saying a studio did something "for money" is pretty dumb. Studios always and only do things for money. No exceptions.

Man of steel was a success. you people are forgetting that it had to build off from the failure of superman returns and it still made alot of money even then. the only reason they are doing a superman sequel with batman in it is to show the general audiance that they are also aiming for a shared cinematic universe like marvel.

@toplel: That is your opinion, I know lots of people who loved it and were hyped for a sequel before Batman was mentioned. I know comics fans predominantly don't like it but we are not the sum total of the movie going public, we're barely a fraction of it. As for the Pirates movies they didn't have any exceptional attractions aside from Johnny Depp and effects, I personally found MOS to have plenty of room to grow, and 90% of all the complaints about the movie seem to be coming from people who expected to see a rehash of the Donner movies and it was never meant to be that, it was a young inexperienced Superman who had yet to learn how to properly manage his power yet. The sequels have the chance to show him becoming the guy he's meant to be.

@wishiwassuperman:

Side note -

I really thought Marvel made a bad move with Thor. Originally they had it for release in August, but had to do reshoots - that's fine.

So they moved it to October. Which I felt would have been perfect, because outside of Gravity early in the month...nothing really was in October to compete.

But they put it 2 weeks before Hunger games? Baaad move imo. Hunger Games is going to kill all of Thor's box office - the former had a huge opening weekend like 3rd biggest in history. Something like 61% of the audience was female too, so you know they aren't going to let their bfs/husbands go to Thor either lol.

I think Thor is at like 580 atm. I doubt it will break 650 tbh. Hunger Games opened like 300m worldwide on its first weekend.

It is not a question of whether a Superman could, of course he could have. Why thought as a company would you not seek higher profits? It make perfect financial sense for them to make a Batman/Superman movie.

@toplel: Again this is totally your opinion, just because you didn't like the movie doesn't mean its a failure. People are allowed to have varying opinions and just declaring something a failure based solely on your opinion is pointless. It made enough money to be considered successful, plenty of people liked it and its not like this is the only time Superman has been reinvented. Originally Superman was a pure vigilante who had no issues killing a crook, then DC turned him into a glorified war bond sales man who had no issue killing enemies of the US in WW2, then the CCA was formed and he was turned into the super moral boyscout of the silver age, then Crisis came along and he got reinvented again and so on and so forth and eventually someone else will come along and reinvent him again.

but dc likes to crame down the same germs down our throats

At the risk of you continuing your very exhausted and pathetically self-centered argument, I have to say - you need to wake up. Man of Steel was a financial success, and the vast majority of the general audiences loved it. Just because you and critics that didn't accept character reinvention didn't like it doesn't mean others cannot. You're not a child, grow up and get over it. And if this movie pains you so much, common sense; stay away from it, threads connected to it, or discussions regarding it.

MoS would've been a successful franchise like Fast and Furious franchise but WB wanted an answer for Avengers 2, which isn't Superman so they're bringing in Batman.

Superman is a strong and big character who can definitely carry his own movie franchise and Man of Steel was a good example for that.The fact that his second movie would be a team-up doesn't mean Supes isn't able to carry his own franchise but it is like that because Snyder wants to attract more viewers to the Superman characters and his surroundings.

I could argue the same for Iron-Man two and every Marvel movie afterwards can't I? I mean, Iron-Man 2 was nowhere near as good as Iron Man, which made less than 600 million at the box office, but it had the added allure of setting up the marvel cinematic universe. Nobody can deny that a big part of the appeal for that movie was seeing Black Widow and Nick Fury interacting with Iron-Man. The same goes for Thor and Captain America. Neither of those movies were as good as Iron Man and they were arguably only slightly better than Iron Man 2....arguably. But, they were setting up the Avengers and that was half the appeal. Fact of the matter is that Marvel only does half as well as they do because they have the appeal of these Avenger team-ups and an interconnected universe where characters can casually show up in anothers movie.

You say that WB added Batman because they feared he couldn't handle his own franchise. Marvel added Nick Fury in Iron Man, do you think they feared for him too? MoS made 660-ish million dollars in his first outing, which is better than any Marvel films first save for Avengers, which isn't a fair comparison anyways. So, no, Batman wasn't added to help Superman, Batman was added to kick start a cinematic universe that already got a better start then marvels did.

Maybe

Regardless of MoS? Yes

Superman has done it before and he could do it now. Everyone still knows who Superman is and MoS proved that he is a huge international draw.

MoS sequel without Batman? Yes

I find it funny how no one knows that sequels almost always make more money than the original, this applies doubly for the Superhero genre. Every successful superhero franchise has shown this. Like @wishiwassuperman posted MoS is the second most successful beginning to a superhero franchise. MoS made 650 million worldwide, a sequel has the capacity to make at the very least 850 million (without Batman).

Yes, I think Superman can carry a franchise on his own (look at the original Christopher Reeve movies (okay not the last ones)). But in the original script of Man of Steel, Bruce Wayne is actually in it. So it's not like they weren't going to sequel without knowing that was what they wanted to. I actually like the team-up idea of Batman/Superman, it'll bring new dynamics to Superman and his cast of characters as well as bring in a new version of Batman which I hope is closer to the comics.

Not upset bro, just adamant. Sorry if I came off that way. I know your opinion is different, and that's fine. Perhaps you didn't plan it that way, but your posts come off as a broken record as to why MoS was a failure to you, why it wasn't a good movie, why it was a box office failure, etc., and was felt very aligned with the centric posts people make that claim something is horrible because it didn't match with their tastes. On their own, that's fine. Repeated over and over and over is tiring and overbearing to others.

That said, I wasn't giving my opinion about anything. I can tho;

I agree with the old proverb, and while I disagree that Superman was "fixed", I do feel he was modernized. And yes, I do believe that was something he needed - all comic characters do, and have gone under modernizations repeatedly - even Superman. Superman from the 1940s was starkly different that from the last 1950s, and Superman from the 80s was very different than from the 90s, or now in the 2010s. Film adaptations are often even more drastic (in a relative sense) because graphic format storytelling is very, very rarely fully compatible with filming formats. Even recent strides in CGI prevent much of the more extreme and dramatic depictions of comic book events because it just doesn't work within the constraints of a film.

Opinions don't bother me, they can actually help you see things more objectively, but dogmatic (perhaps you didn't intend it, but the internet leaves the deliverance of most comments up to individual interpretation) assertions do. I'm in a line of work that puts me in contact with the public (usually less-than-friendly) on a near-daily basis, so I'd like to think I've got skin thick enough.

And in conclusion.... I had absolutely no intention of writing this much... wow

@wishiwassuperman: I always feel like you know what you're talking about!! Good job!

No, I'm not being defensive, a response like that would look like this:

"You guys are idiots. Man of Steel was awesome and heaps of people loved it! Whah, whah, whah, blah, blah, blah."

I merely pointed out the facts that contradict what was actually being said.

1. MoS is the highest grossing film in it's release month in history. It's the 3rd biggest grossing origin film in history. Outside of Spider-Man, no film has rebooted/started with higher numbers. It "came off the back" of Superman Returns - Avengers, TDKR, IM3 and TASM are all completely separate franchises. Avengers and IM3 BOTH leveraged existing franchises of already successful films, NONE of which earned more than MoS.

2. Avengers was the 6th movie in that "shared universe" model, following successful launches of Thor, Captain America, and 2 Iron Man films. The Incredible Hulk is actually part of it too - yet because it wasn't a box office "success", no one ever seems to mention that, I often wonder why that is... but I digress. Point is, Iron Man was Marvel's first film in their "shared Universe" and made $585 million. MoS made $662 million - how is that not a good start by relative comparison? Also other than a post credits scene - what was Marvel's pointers to a "shared universe"? Why does every film need a post credits scene (Marvel's current trend is 2 it seems... which is pretty annoying)?

3. Superman Returns was a flop - why on Earth would you expect people were pumped? Yeah it IS Superman - who at the time wasn't exactly the most popular character on Earth. Sure he's well known, but that's doesn't equal popular. It's arguable even that by the time MoS came out he was in like top 10 lists but certainly not at the top. By all accounts outside of the CB community Batman, IM and Wolverine would all be considered more "popular" and Spider-Man too - hell this is probably true within the CB community. Also Fast & Furious 6 earned pretty much what people should have expected it to earn. It was the 6TH installment in a massively popular franchise. Fast 5 did around $650 million - how is that even a comparison?

4. 3D adds about, on average, $3 to the ticket price. So people were still watching it - it's just that per ticket sold, it got about a $3 boost from the 3D sales - which isn't offered as a breakdown. Using averages though, probably about 30% of US audiences saw it that way and about 40% of international audiences. Without 3D - still a $600 million movie. You can also use the same argument for TASM, The Wolverine, Avengers, IM3, Thor: The Dark World... The only films NOT to get a 3D boost are the Batman trilogy.

WB would have been hoping to make money - the more, the better. Simple as that. To expect $800 million given it's predecessor's (Superman Returns) performance, the fact it had to compete with 2 major childrens films either the same weekend of within a week (depending on where in the world you were), and was a reboot/origin film - WB I expect are more than happy with how it performed. Let's not forget GL failed too, which would have brought WB a reality check about how their films can still bomb. MoS got them back all the money they lost on the franchise a few years earlier and then gave back even more - I'm tipping WB were happy and I seriously doubt had an expectation of $800 million - considering that it's "mere" $662 million has it ranked as the 5th highest grossing CBM since 2008, 8th highest since 2000 and 10th highest of all time.

Using the logic applied in this thread -

1. X-Men franchise is a failure, as is Wolverine as a stand-alone character - because they haven't cracked anywhere near the figures of other CBM's (by "other CBM's" of course that is actually just referring to Avengers, TDK, TDKR and IM3 - for some reason I'm the one who keeps bringing up Spider-Man, but he is included here too).

2. Thor, Captain America and Iron Man (until this year) shouldn't have continued since they didn't earn anywhere near other CBM's (despite them making up the majority of those other CBM's that keep getting referenced). And considering the Thor sequel isn't looking to hit $800 million+ - not good enough so the franchise needs IM to boost it.

3. Nolan's trilogy started off at only $374 million - good thing it wasn't expected to bring in anywhere near the figures anyone seems to expect from MoS.

4. All of them are not good enough with the exception of Avengers, IM 3, and TDK/TDKR since Spider-Man was making WAAAAY more money than any other CBM in their relative release years with the above 4 exceptions - of the total 65 CBM's made since 2000. Yes... there has been 65 movies released over the last 13 years that are comic book based, and 30 since 2008 - the "beginning" of the CBM "boom", and 26 since 2010. In 3 years there's been 26 CBM's?!?!?! ...Damn that's a lot.

And MoS specifically sits at 10th highest among all that of CBM's since 1978. Yeah - it didn't meet expectations at all (sarcasm if you're not sure).

I'm actually going to repeat this part of your post specifically:

And let's be honest, whether or not Batman was intended to be in the next film or not. Whether they felt Superman could carry his franchise or not. Batman is in the sequel for the money. He is the number one reason the majority of people will be going to see this sequel. They could even not have Superman show up in his sequel, just Batman, and it would still draw in near to 1 billion. So WB must surely be looking for more money.

What!?!?! EVERY movie company does what it does to make more money... how is that even any type of argument. SHOULDN'T WB expect to the two oldest and most iconic comic book characters of all time to generate more buzz and anticipation and probably generate more money than any CBM in history? Is WB not mean to capitalise on that? Batman on his own is happening too - that was a given. This move is about setting up a JL film without rehashing the same path taken by Marvel. It also just so happens that it'll probably be the biggest CBM of all time. Is Batman part of that - sure - but Batman on his own is no guarantee of a $1 billion dollars either. That's nothing more than hyperbole - especially if account for the critical and fan response to TDKR - which wasn't as great as people expected it to be. It was still massively popular and successful - not arguing that - but a new Batman franchise will have the same problems as every other film - it'll only hit $1 billion if it's a good movie and enough people watch it over and over again.

You and I disagree on this over-all topic obviously having read through this thread - however - Superman Returns bombed - ergo it was "broken" and "needed fixing". Everything else is opinion - your's in my opinion is pretty slanted due to your personal like/dislike for the films based on your posts in here - and that's fine. Mine is slanted the other way due to my personal like/dislike of the film. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and all film is subjective. But if we break down into "facts" - read my above two posts. MoS did more than fine, and in point of fact, fan reviews and ratings of the film are actually pretty decent - meaning the general audiences did in fact like it. Maybe not to the level of TDK - but hey, TDK is considered the best (or in the top 2) CBM's of all time. Even here on CV, MoS came in 2nd in that Best CBM thread. Probably should have been 3rd or 4th - but that still ranks it very highly in terms of popularity. So film critics scores aside (which I have no explanation for other than critics judging it against their own preconceived notions and expectations for what they think/felt the film should have been., instead of judging it as it's own film, it's own interpretation and on the less emotional aspects of film such as camera work, pacing, acting, dialogue, etc... as critics should do), MoS WAS and IS a popular and well liked film by fans. Your earlier statements to the contrary don't stack up to the facts and figures - such as its #1 spot in Blu-ray/DVD sales - it's first week getting better market share than Monsters U did during it's first week for example which came out the week before and had a better box-office result, as just 1 example. In point of fact it's opening week market share was even better than IM3's was when it came out.

The same can be said of Fox and Marvel technically. In the last decade of CBM's, "DC" as you've decided to brand them (when it's actually WB) have given us 2 Superman films and 3 Batman films - this will be appearances number 3 and 4 respectively. Fox on the other hand have given us Wolverine 5 times, with a 6th confirmed and a 7th already being talked about. Similarly Marvel have "crammed" Iron Man down our throats 4 times already, with 2 more confirmed. "Oh but they have done Hulk and Cap and Thor too" - yes, and WB/DC have also done Jonah Hex, GL, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and The Losers... Marvel is the ones actually playing catch-up on the "diversity" front with GoTG and Ant-Man to actually make up their numbers. WB has all but officially confirmed and locked in JL (which should re-invent GL, provide WW and Flash, and I'd wager a guess that Cyborg will probably jump in there too given his push in the CB's) and there's A LOT of talk about a stand-alone Flash film being the immediate follow-up along with Batman and a 3rd Superman film - so really no difference between the two.

Yes

Yes and this is a dumb question

Um...yeah. But he needs a better writer than Goyer.

@toplel: I think youre confusing your opinion of the movie with the question of whether or not it was a success.

It did better than almost any super hero origin movie, including Batman Begins. It broke the record to date for June openings. It had a better opening weekend than even the most recent Thor movie (which can be counted as an Avengers sequel). It had the 16th best opening weekend ever, not even considering its Thursday showings. Other than Iron Man 2/3, Avengers, it made more money than ANY Marvel movie.

When considering objective things like "Financial Success or Not" take yourself out of it.

As far as the subjective side, its been my favourite super hero film to date. You obviously hate it. Neither is wrong.

Sourced from Box Office Mojo

Actually I never said any of this made the film "good" - I was indicating it was "popular" which is what is required for a film to a) make money and b) get a sequel. In the context of this thread's question - that is all that matters. I merely pointed to the measurable, objective, "facts" and considerations of it's performance in the context of if the franchise "needed" Batman or could have stood on its own. The evidence of measurable information says "yes - most definitely" despite the unfounded claims it didn't "meet expectations" or "perform as well as it should/could have". You had been claiming that people didn't like the movie - I pointed out that was incorrect based on the evidence. And no one said the "character of Superman" was broken - but the film franchise was - which was how I understood your statement.

If you're referring to my reference to it's position on the CV thread - that doesn't indicate the quality of the film (nor was I trying to imply such) - merely people's opinions on it and if they liked it. I made the statement it probably should have finished 3rd or 4th because as luck would have had it - Avengers was knocked out early by TDK, which had that not occurred, likely would have dropped MoS's final position - considering how "popular" Avengers is - which is all that thread indicates. How popular a film is. Saying "this movie is better than that movie" is doing nothing more than stating a personal opinion and preference. Here's the thing - you're pretty much saying it was a bad movie - which is nothing more than your opinion and I'm fine with that. The facts and figures however suggest most (certainly not all) people disagree with you - the indicators are that it was liked and is popular. That's all I'm trying to point out, which translates into the franchise having support without the need for Batman.

At no point does "my line of reasoning " attempt to indicate that Avatar is the " one of the best ever made". But it certainly is one of the (one could argue THE) most popular. The massive number of planned sequels will indicate just how good the franchise as a whole is and how much people like it. Personally I think the film was over-rated - but I can't argue with $2.7 billion. A film can't make that without absolutely bucket tons of people watching it over, and over, and over again - which you would only do if you liked the move.

This right here is the thing - that's YOUR opinion only - and it's a judgement call on the quality of the film. The actual measurable performance of the film shows it to have done as well as it's contemporaries - better in more cases than not. Also trying to judge the "potential" for a film is impossible. Every film has the "potential" to earn over a billion dollars. Every film also has the potential to fail miserably and lose money. "Potential" for things like this isn't quantifiable and measurable and there is nothing to go against. So to claim that does nothing to improve your argument the franchise couldn't have stood on it's own (as per your original post/reply to the OP) and just shows your own opinion of the film itself coming through - not considering it's actual performance as you implored @joshmightbe to do earlier. You have your opinion of the films quality - awesome - that's not something I can argue with - it's your personal opinion. But considering the actual measurable performance of the film - there is very few genuine criticisms available to it's detractors. IMO the only "criticisms" left is that it didn't beat Batman or Avengers or Spider-Man - but you know what? That's not really a criticism - that's just an observation and acknowledges that it wasn't among the top 5 grossing CBM's of all time - but that doesn't detract from how it actually performed - because not many films actually sit up there with it within it's genre. It beat most of them - even from the recent years. How about fans of the character be happy with it's performance instead of trying to unjustifiably tear it down. Sure, hate the movie if you want - but at least this means we get more movies - and more opportunities to see the character perhaps that you want to see.

Much better argument. I disagree, but you've explained it much better this time - without resorting to your personal opinions on the film itself. You've still made some categorical statements that I think the figures indicate aren't totally accurate, but those are open to interpretation to a degree, so we will have to wait and see. However the idea that Tom Hiddleston as Loki is more popular or "liked" than Henry Cavill as Superman for example - you're probably not wrong. Personally, I've only seen a few people who didn't think Cavill did an awesome job as Superman, and if they didn't like the film, they seemed to still think he did a good job - so with a more "likable" version as you put it - we may still see that. Having Batman around isn't necessary though to do that, and it's figures justified a sequel regardless of Batman - WB are just capitalising as best they can, I'd say to go for the biggest cash take in one grab and try and show up Marvel/Disney - I personally hope they do by making this film simply awesome. Superman/Batman or not, if it's a bad movie it won't do well. As long as it's moderately OK - I reckon $800 million will be easy for it. If it's actually a really good movie - $1.5 - $2 billion... that's my prediction. But only time will tell. Either way, I'd say a stand-alone Superman film is already in the plans, probably looking for 2018/19 release along with a stand alone film for Batman and at least 1 league member (most likely Flash) around that time assuming JL hits in 2017 as is currently rumored. WB can theoretically make more films simultaneously than Marvel can due to being a bigger studio over-all.

Of course he can

Yeah, 100% I think it was a poor choice. I also don't think it's going to lose steam any time soon, whereas Thor dropped to $45 million in its second week, a 58% drop, which is pretty sharp (domestically). MoS faced a similar problem thanks to Monsters U, but its overall numbers were higher so fared slightly better. Also I think Thor is close to the end of its run internationally so I doubt too much more is coming its way from there... We'll know more after this week's figures are in.

@toplel: dude...just give it a rest. We get it. I'm pretty sure you think Superman can carry his own franchise.

...of course he can. I mean despite Superman returns and all the bad critics of this reboot Mos has still grossed about 660 milions and i don't think anyone has really been alienated from going to see its sequel.Quite the contrary. Probably the guys who were most deluded by it were the Superman's fans and not viceversa: i went to the cinema with some friends of mine who weren't(aren't) interested into Superman and they have really apreciated the film...more than i did ( and not for superman killing zod which made perfectly sense but for other reasons).

So, at the end of the day, the people who hate Superman, the ones who think he is boooring,won't go to see a sequel with just Superman in it, but among them there are now many ones who have actually enjoyed Mos despite their previsions, and those people can pretty well see a sequel even without Batman. Then , probably the majority of the Superman's fan that were delued by the film are still going to give the benefit of the doubt to the next film...simply because they love the character.

Hopefully Superman will get another solo film after batman/superman... but for now lets just hope that Batman won't kick Superman's a*s!