‘Superman’ Just Set A Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score Record

This article was published on 7/9 and republished on 7/10.

While critic reviews came pouring in yesterday for Superman, now it’s the audience’s turn, the one who will actually determine if the movie is a success or not (and with an estimated $200 million opening weekend, indications are that it will be).

Those audience scores have gone live and as of right now, Superman has set a new audience score record for live-action Superman films and is just under the critic record right now.

Superman currently has an 85% critic score and a sky-high 95% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. That 95% is above second place, Zack Snyder’s Justice League cut, which has a 92% and an army of Snyder superfans who were certainly going to score it high. Whether you want to consider Justice League a “Superman movie” is up for debate. That’s sort of like considering four Avengers movies “Thor movies” or “Iron Man movies,” and I’m not sure it counts, though it may be the case the audience score dips below that in the future.

I would be surprised if it went down to third place, the original Superman: The Movie starring Christopher Reeve. That’s the film that is currently beating out Superman by a single percent, as overnight Superman dropped from an 86% to an 85% with a few more reviews in. Here’s the overall list, sorted by audience score.

• Superman (2025) – 85% critic, 95% audience
• Justice League (Snyder, 2021) – 71% critic, 92% audience
• Superman: The Movie (1978) – 86% critic, 86% audience
• Superman II (1980) – 88% critic, 76% audience
• Man of Steel (2013) – 57% critic, 75% audience
• Justice League (Whedon, 2017) – 39% critic, 67% audience
• Batman V Superman (2016) – 28% critic, 63% audience
• Superman Returns (2005) – 72% critic, 60% audience
• Superman III (1983) – 31% critic, 23% audience
• Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) – 14% critic, 16% audience

Superman has been a notoriously hard nut to crack, with a rival like Batman or even Wonder Woman generally getting more praise for their films. Even the original stretch of Superman movies ended with two terrible ones, Superman III and Superman IV, despite still starring the excellent Reeve.

As it stands, it’s possible that Superman could regain the critic score record or lose the audience score record as more reviews come in for each. Some critics may not have been invited to early screenings, so more will be coming in. And this is still very early for audiences, given that these are excited initial viewers. But we’ll see. Either way, so far, so good. Very good, in fact.

Update (7/10): Well, good news and bad news 24 hours later here. The critic score for Superman has fallen 1% down to an 84%. That doesn’t change its place among Superman movies, but it knocks it below The Batman and moves it further down James Gunn’s catalog.

The good news is that the audience score for Superman actually went up a percent and is now a 96%. That’s with more than double the ratings we saw yesterday, though yes, the film is not hitting its ultra-wide release until tonight. But it’s still significant that as more reviews rolled in, it’s actually still increasing.

Box office estimates continue to hover around $200 million for its opening weekend, and James Gunn’s statement that the movie didn’t need to hit $700 million to be a success seems like it won’t matter. My question is if it could hit a billion over the long run if word-of-mouth spreads. It’s overall budget was $200 million, so it’s going to hit that instantly, but it needs to also get past marketing and distribution. And there has been a ton of marketing for this movie.

Superman is going to be a big hit, that much is clear already. If audience scores stay anywhere near here, that’s a massive win for the DCU and Gunn, and a killer start to this new era for DC. Now, we will head toward Supergirl, where we will no doubt see a guest appearance from Superman at the very least. It’s not a Gunn production, but he’s been raving about it, so we’ll see how it goes.

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