pension333: Man of Steel takes off ? but will World War Z bring him back to Earth?

A June opening weekend record confirms that Superman's invulnerability extends to critical barbs. Now he just needs to fend off Brad Pitt ?

Raiding the vaults is de rigueur in an industry where the heads of studios are terrified of change and thus as creatively risk averse as their corporate parents. Warner Bros has consistently been one of the more daring purveyors of mass-appeal content, but even its minions are not inured to the allure of conservatism.

The studio has made much capital out of the Superman franchise and keeps on trying to reinvent the dullest of all the superheroes. To be fair, Zack Snyder's thunderous Man of Steel is far livelier than Bryan Singer's misguided 2006 entry into the canon, Superman Returns, and while it drew only so-so reviews, it did set a new record for a June opening weekend of $113.1m.

That's some achievement, considering the competition over the past decade includes the previous record holder Toy Story 3, which grossed $110.3m in 2010, as well as anticipated sequels like Transformers 2 and 3, Madagascar 2 and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Genre lovers tend to get out in the first and second weekend in support of movies, so the question is, how will it hold against the Brad Pitt zombie apocalypse movie World War Z this week. World War Z is probably more critic-dependent than Man of Steel and could rise or fall based on what the reviewers say. Early word looks good, despite several dissenting opinions, so this weekend's battle is shaping up to be close.

Man of Steel has already shot to just under $200m at the worldwide box office, including a promising $72m haul from the first wave of debuts outside North America (the UK was among the launches), an arena in which the movie could continue to dominate, given that this week's second phase features a greater number of major markets. Disney/Pixar's Monsters University will also enter the fray in North America and poses less of a challenge to Man of Steel as the target demographics most definitely do not overlap.

Marvel Studios' Iron Man 3 will pass $400m at the box office on Monday or Tuesday through Buena Vista to add another string to its polished bow. These are great days for Robert Downey Jr, but not so jolly for Will Smith, whose father-son act in After Earth continues to slide ignominiously out of the top 10. After three weekends, the running total stands at $54.2m ? almost unheard of in Smith's career. Admittedly the movie's real star is Smith's son Jaden, but surely the fading superstar will be in no hurry to remind anybody of that.