Weekend Box Office Report: June 14-16, 2013

Superman soars!

One of the year's most anticipated movies finally arrived on Earth this weekend, and was greeted with open arms by humans — MAN OF STEEL landed at the top with a heroic $125 million opening!

While that total does include $12 million from special Walmart-promotional Thursday evening shows, the $113 million three-day total is still enough to crack the record for biggest June weekend, defeating TOY STORY 3's $110.3 million start in 2010. It's also the second-biggest opening of the year, behind IRON MAN 3's whopping $174.1 million first weekend.

MAN OF STEEL was definitely faster than a speeding bullet compared to the last time the big red 'S' was on the screen — SUPERMAN RETURNS' first weekend in 2006 brought in $52.5 million (although the movie opened on Wednesday). Bryan Singer and Brandon Routh's take on the iconic character only ended up with $200 million domestically, an amount that MAN OF STEEL should punch through by next weekend, further propelled by a strong 'A-' CinemaScore from audiences.

The last son of Krypton won't be visiting a lot of international markets until next week (or later), but the movie has made an additional $26 million from the overseas territories that did get to meet the defender/destroyer of Metropolis.

In second place was the R-rated comedy THIS IS THE END with $20.5 million. The apocalyptic hilarity, featuring (presumably) exaggerated versions of actors like Seth Rogen, James Franco and Jay Baruchel, got a Wednesday jump on Supes and has since made $32.5 million (its approximate production cost). The movie (co-directed by Rogen and Evan Goldberg, expanding on their short film JAY AND SETH VERSUS THE APOCALYPSE) also collected a respectable 'B+' CinemaScore from crowds.

NOW YOU SEE ME continues to works its magic, holding third place with another $10.3 million and proving to be a stealthy summer favorite. FAST & FURIOUS 6 skidded past it to fourth, but it's currently 2013's third-biggest movie domestically (behind IRON MAN 3 and OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL) and is up to $636.8 million worldwide.

Last weekend's #1 movie, the low-budget terror flick THE PURGE, plunged to fifth with $8.2 million — almost a 76% drop in business. While that's not completely out of the ordinary for a smaller horror release lacking positive word-of-mouth, most horror movies also don't have to face one of the world's most popular superheroes in their second week… and the filmmakers are undoubtedly thrilled with the $58.5 global return on their $3M budget.

The new Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson comedy THE INTERNSHIP also took a hit this weekend, dropping 60% to sixth place with another $7 million, an indicator that it's probably going to meet a swift demise as more big movies are thrust onto screens in the next couple of weeks. Further down, the animated fantasy EPIC is nearing the $100 million mark (it's at $212.7M worldwide), AFTER EARTH is clinging to the bottom of the list, and IRON MAN 3 is thisclose to topping $400 million domestically.

Outside the chart, THE HANGOVER PART III and THE GREAT GATSBY have fallen from sight (though both are already performing better internationally than they did during their North American runs), the Hawke/Delpy/Linklater trinity BEFORE MIDNIGHT made an additional $1.5 million in expanded release, and the Emma Watson crime caper THE BLING RING had a decent $45k per-screen average in limited release.

Next weekend looks at Mike and Sully's past in Pixar's MONSTERS UNIVERSITY, Brad Pitt battles the zompocalypse in WORLD WAR Z, and THE BLING RING opens on an extra 500+ screens.

What movie do you think will be the first to knock MAN OF STEEL from the top of the box office? VOTE HERE!