The new Superman flick Man of Steel made $21 million at late night screenings, Warner Bros. announced this week.

This haul included $12 million from a special 7 p.m. screening, in a ticket package arrangement with retailer Walmart.

Man of Steel's overnight sales put it above those of recent huge hits Iron Man 3 in May ($15.6 million) and The Avengers last year ($18.7 million), according to Variety. However, the Superman sales were still well below Thursday overnight sales from last July's The Dark Night Rises, which made $30 million.

The film is expected to make somewhere between $90 and $100 million in weekend sales, though Warner Bros. is keeping their estimates more modest by predicting in the low $80 millions.

In addition to the United States, the film opened in 24 international markets, including Mexico, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. The film has already set an opening day record in the Philippines by making $1.7 million on Wednesday -- 90 percent of the local market share.

The film's mixed reviews don't seem to have damaged its box office sales: movie review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes currently has the film ranked at 59%, only slightly under the website's "fresh" rating of 60%.

Even some of the positive reviews of Man of Steel were qualified.

Peter Travers called the film "a bumpy ride for sure" in his Rolling Stone review while Globe and Mail critic Liam Lacey said the film "gets exhaustingly bombastic although, sequence by sequence," although he did still consider it worth seeing.

Tom Long of The Detroit News said the film "packs quite a wallop" but added that it had perhaps " a few too many wallops."

NPR critic Glen Weldon -- a veritable expert on the superhero who published his book Superman: The Unauthorized Biography in April -- did not take kindly to the film.

"Man of Steel's violence doesn't escalate," Weldon wrote. "It simply, tediously, iterates. We keep waiting to thrill, to exult, to cheer our hero on. When the lights come up, we're still waiting."

Tags: Man of Steel