The Wolverine topped the box office, but analysts are calling the movie’s debut disappointing missing projections. The debuted with $55 million which was about $5-10 million below the expectations and projections. That’s well below the $85.1 million that the original X-Men Origins: Wolverine made in 2009. That’s compounded by higher ticket prices including a 3D release. The movie however did well overseas were it earned $86.1 million in 100 markets. The movie has yet to debut in China and Japan, two markets where it should do quite well.

The Wolverine had a pretty decent Thursday night showing of $4 million. That had analysts predicting a $65 million opening for the movie well into Friday afternoon. The fans seemed to have flocked early to see it, leaving the general moving going audience to pass.

The movie has earned a mediocre 66% on Rotten Tomatoes (as of this writing) but a solid “A-“ CinemaScore from opening weekend audiences. Audiences were 58% male and 58% over the age of 25 showing some issues with the movie’s appeal to general audiences.

This is the second rough opening for “comic book movies” in recent weeks as R.I.P.D. opened to bad reviews and a missing audience. that movie has only earned $24.3 million domestically and less than half of that overseas in its first ten days. That movie had a budget of around $130 million.

Next week sees the opening of 2 Guns, another “comic book movie” which isn’t being marketed as such. We’ll see how that fairs in its opening weekend.

You can read our review of The Wolverine and catch our thoughts on the film.