It’s an old Hollywood adage: Even the most down-on-its-luck studio is “just one hit away” from redemption.
What about five hits?
After one of the worst box office runs in Warner Bros.’ 102-year history — setting off frenzied speculation about the firing of senior studio leaders — the studio suddenly found a colossal hit in April (“A Minecraft Movie,” now nearing $1 billion in global ticket sales). Three more blockbusters followed in quick succession (“Sinners,” “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” “F1: The Movie”).
Warner Bros. delivered its fifth consecutive No. 1 movie over the weekend. “Superman,” which received strong reviews, will take in roughly $122 million in theaters in North America from Thursday through Sunday, analysts estimated. The film — a high-risk effort to reboot DC Studios, Warner’s long-floundering superhero division — was on track to sell another $95 million in tickets overseas.
“A hell of a run,” David Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery, said in a phone interview. “We’re organized, and we’re on the attack.”
Mr. Zaslav lavished praise on James Gunn, who directed and wrote “Superman.” Mr. Gunn also runs DC Studios with Peter Safran. “Our biggest strategic opportunity was that DC was underdeveloped,” he said. “Now we have Gunn and Safran firing with a 10-year plan. ‘Supergirl’ has already been shot. They’re working on Wonder Woman. They’re working on Batman.”
Criticism of “Superman” by right-leaning media figures before the film’s release did not appear to dent ticket sales. (They deemed it “Superwoke” after the movie’s director called the extraterrestrial superhero “an immigrant” and noted that “it is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost.”)
If anything, the attention from Fox News and elsewhere may have helped: Based on advance ticket sales and surveys that track moviegoer interest, Warner Bros. had expected “Superman” to open to about $100 million in North America. “Superman” cost an estimated $350 million to make and market.
In March, Warner Bros. was languishing in last place among the major Hollywood studios in terms of domestic box office market share, according to The Numbers, a box office database. Warner Bros. is expected to have taken in roughly $1.2 billion in the United States and Canada so far this year, up 50 percent from the same period in 2024. (Disney is at $1.26 billion.)
Film industry veterans said they could not recall another example of a studio going from gloom to boom so quickly and forcefully.
“I’ve analyzed the box office for over 32 years, and it’s hard to think of a comeback story that beats this one,” said Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst at Comscore, which compiles ticketing data. “They went from 0 to 100 in like five seconds.”
In 2024, Warner Bros. had only one homegrown hit, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” The first three months of 2025 were equally bad, with movies like “Mickey 17” and “The Alto Knights” crashing and burning — so much so that some people in Hollywood began viewing Mr. Zaslav as something of a joke. A lifelong television executive, Mr. Zaslav blew into the film capital in 2022 and vowed to restore a troubled Warner Bros. to its old glory.
Exactly when was this turnaround going to take hold?
“The studio really needed a full reset,” Mr. Zaslav said in the phone interview. “It has been hard-fought. But we’re making real progress.”
Credit for the studio’s hot streak goes to a constellation of artists and executives. Mr. Gunn and Mr. Safran are two. The Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group is led by Pam Abdy and Mike De Luca. They backed “Sinners,” directed, written and produced by Ryan Coogler, and “A Minecraft Movie,” directed by Jared Hess. (Ms. Abdy and Mr. De Luca were on thin ice at the beginning of the year. Asked if their jobs were now safe, Mr. Zaslav replied, “All of us are really, really proud of Mike and Pam. They’re having a really strong run.”)
But fair is fair: Mr. Zaslav put these teams in place. Although senior Warner Bros. executives have considerable sway when it comes to deciding what movies get made at the studio, Mr. Zaslav also holds the final green light authority.
Mr. Zaslav, 65, could be even more involved with the company’s movie operation in the future. Last month, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that it would cleave itself into two companies, becoming the latest entertainment conglomerate to unshackle its withering cable networks from its growing streaming services. Mr. Zaslav will run the streaming service HBO Max and the Warner Bros. movie and television studio, while Gunnar Wiedenfels will run a second company made up of cable channels, including CNN and TNT.
The movie division will become a more prominent part of quarterly earnings for Mr. Zaslav’s half.
Warner Bros. will surely continue to have the occasional flop; it’s the nature of the movie business. The studio also faces the same broader challenges as the rest of Hollywood — namely how to keep up with technology and changing cultural tastes and habits. And there are questions in Hollywood about how long Warner Bros. will remain an independent studio: By spinning off its cable networks, Warner Bros. Discovery has made itself a more desirable acquisition target.
But this is the most stable Warner Bros. has been in years. There are numerous films in its pipeline that hold box office promise. “Weapons,” an original horror mystery, arrives on Aug. 8. Another high-profile original movie, “One Battle After Another,” directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is scheduled for September release.
Warner Bros. also has numerous sequels on the way over the next few years, including “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” “Practical Magic 2,” “Lord of the Rings: The Hunt For Gollum,” “Wonka 2,” “Gremlins 3” and two new installments in the “Oceans” heist franchise. The studio’s overhauled animation division will make its debut in February with “The Cat in the Hat.”
“I believe, deeply and wholeheartedly, in motion pictures,” Mr. Zaslav said. “It’s the purest, most exhilarating and most powerful storytelling in the world.”
Moviegoers may have superhero fatigue — Marvel’s “Thunderbolts” fizzled in May, despite strong reviews — but marketplace demand clearly remains for quality films based on A-list comics characters. Mr. Gunn’s movie is the first solo Superman spectacle since Zack Snyder’s colder and darker “Man of Steel” in 2013. “Man of Steel” had $117 million in opening-weekend ticket sales, or $163 million after adjusting for inflation.
“Superman,” which features David Corenswet in the title role and Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, was meant to do more than sell tickets. The company’s goal with the film was ultimately to persuade movie fans to think differently about the DC Studios brand — that it has moved past a period of inconsistent storytelling and whipsawing quality. “Superman” sets up story lines and characters that will now be threaded into future films and TV shows in an entertainment conceit called the DC Universe, or D.C.U.
“Superman” received an A-minus grade from ticket buyers in CinemaScore exit polls. The Rotten Tomatoes audience score stood at 93 percent positive on Sunday.
“Superman is a hero for everyone,” Mr. Safran, the DC Studios co-chairman, said in an email on Sunday. “What a great weekend, and a phenomenal start for our D.C.U.!”
Brooks Barnes covers all things Hollywood. He joined The Times in 2007 and previously worked at The Wall Street Journal.
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