‘Wonder Woman’: Female and Older Moviegoers Powered Box Office, New Study Shows

The stellar box office performance by “Wonder Woman” has been propelled by strong support among female moviegoers and older patrons, according to a study by marketing data analytics firm Movio.

The Gal Gadot tentpole has now taken in $356.7 million domestically in 34 days — an impressive three and a half times its $103 million opening weekend — with plenty of pull at multiplexes. On Wednesday, the day after Independence Day, it pulled in $2.1 million at 3,404 sites and has topped “Inside Out” as the 38th highest domestic grosser of all time.

“‘Wonder Woman’s’ audience evolved in a similar manner as most blockbusters but with some trends notably magnified,” noted Matthew Liebmann, Movio’s senior VP for the Americas. “While the female and 50+ segments of the audience generally grow over the course of the run, ‘Wonder Woman’s’ female audience nearly reached parity with the male audience by the third week.”

He noted that strong reviews and word-of mouth drove its impressive performance after opening weekend. Liebmann told Variety that it’s unprecedented for a superhero tentpole movie to reach male-female parity at any point of its run — due to propensity of male moviegoers to support those titles. The average superhero movie draws a 62% male audience.

“Even ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens,’ which had a strong female lead with Daisy Ridley, never got closer than 56-44 male,” Liebman said.

He noted that the audience share for moviegoers over 50 increased from 12% to 22% over the first weeks — 20% higher than other tentpoles. And 22% of “Wonder Woman” viewers are infrequent moviegoers (who see one to four films a year), compared to a 16% average for that group.

Movio’s data also showed that average number of admissions per purchase for “Wonder Woman” was well above average.

“That says to me that there was an increase in parents taking their children to see the film,” Liebmann added. “It wasn’t just the female audience that made this film a hit.”

In March, Movio released a study at CinemaCon showing that U.S. moviegoers who are at least 50 years old comprise more than 30% of all admissions and that the 50-plus audience averaged 6.8 annual visits to cinemas, compared with 5.2 annual visits for the average moviegoer.

Get more from Variety and Variety411: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Newsletter