Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice didn't get love from the critics. It's not the worst reviewed, big-budget superhero flick of all time or anything—that honor goes to another, fairly recent disaster of a movie—but Zack Snyder's new film has plenty to hate (and just a few things to like). None of that mattered when it came to the box office, though. Batman v Superman set the record for the largest worldwide opening of all time this weekend.
According to comicbook.com, the movie opened to the tune of $424 million globally, with $254 million of that coming from overseas, and around $170 million coming from North America. That's enough for the global record, although it's not the largest opening ever domestically. That title is still held by Star Wars: The Force Awakens' $247 million opening weekend in North America (Jurassic World and both Avengers movies also made more money domestically in their opening weekends than Batman v Superman). The movie's haul also set a domestic record for the largest March opening of all time, according to CNN Money.
What matters to the studios, though, is of course the bottom line, not what region the money is coming from. This giant box office success has to be a relief for Warner Bros., which saw Batman v Superman's production budget balloon from an announced $131 million in 2014, to a rumored total of more than $250 million when the film finally wrapped. Maybe Ben Affleck isn't quite so sad anymore, either.
It was obviously a rough weekend for any other movie that scheduled its release for same time that the two most iconic superheroes of all time were set to beat each other up on the big screen. This weekend's No. 2 movie was Zootopia, which brought in $23.1 million domestically in its fourth week. In the No. 3 spot was My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, which brought in $18.1 million in North America in its debut weekend.
