James Gunn’s ‘Superman: Legacy’ Has A Budget of $363 Million?

A social media user flagged an article in the Columbus Business Journal which included the claim that James Gunn’s “Superman: Legacy” would have a massive budget of $363 million …

[The film] is expected to receive more than $11 million in tax credits. Superman: Legacy projects it will hire 3,254 Ohio residents, according to the application. The film’s total eligible production expenditures for the Ohio Motion Picture Tax Credit were nearly $37 million, or a little more than 10% of the film’s total budget of more than $363.8 million.

That is a lot of money, if true, and a major risk-taking endeavor for all involved. Regardless, the post got a decent amount of traction, which led to Gunn semi-denying the claim on Thread. He wrote "How in the world do they think they know what our budget is."

Apparently, you can. A Reddit user googled the government website for the Ohio Motion Picture Tax Credit. That page includes “public information” about the production, and it looks like the budget was accurate …

Superman Legacy filed a tax credit application for $36,972,289 and the full production budget is 363,845,386.00 so the Ohio spend represents 10.16% of the budget. ADDITIONALLY "25% of the production is being shot in Ohio" (another article reported this number). They have to provide all of this information due to Section 122.85 of the Ohio Code. However, this section doesn't define "production budget."

So, unless Warner Bros lied in their tax claim, it does look as though the officially submitted budget for “Superman: Legacy” currently stands at $363 million. Generally, the budget for superhero films can be anywhere between $150 million to $200 million. Some films have gone over that, most notably the last two ‘Avengers’ movies which cost anywhere between $350-400 million to produce.

The last two ‘Superman’ films, 2006’s “Superman Returns” and 2013’s “Man of Steel,” had production budgets in the $200 million range. More recently, “Justice League” was made for $300 million. So, it’s not so crazy to believe that Gunn’s take on the character will be higher than those older movies.

The amount of pressure Gunn has in making “Superman: Legacy” is unheard of. Warner and David Zaslav are betting all their chips on Gunn’s DCEU and if it gets off to a rocky start then heads will have to roll. I do wonder if there is a massive audience for Superman, which has been rebooted a few times already, to mixed results. Batman and Spider-Man seem to be the more popular takes for movie audiences.

The characters recently united for a cast photo during a script read. A March production start is expected for “Superman: Legacy,” which is set to star David Corenswet, Rachel Bronahan, Nicholas Hoult, Skyler Gisondo, Anthony Carrigan and Isabela Merced. The film will be released theatrically on July 11, 2025.