Box Office: 'Supergirl' Flops With Disastrous $68M Global Debut

Once again, the hills and valleys associated with DC Comics movies threaten to overshadow everything else going right or wrong for Warner Bros.

It would be one thing if Craig Gillespie and Ana Nogueira’s Milly Alcock-starring Supergirl were opening in second place with otherwise strong initial grosses. After all, in June 2015, nobody carped when Inside Out 2 opened with $90 million just behind Jurassic World’s $108 million second weekend. Likewise, if a lower-than-hoped opening for the latest DC Studios offering coincided with an unusually strong post-debut hold for the latest Pixar sequel, think Inside Out 2 dropping just 34% from a $154 million opening in June 2024. But neither of those elements applies.

Supergirl, opening amid mixed reviews and a mere B- from CinemaScore, grossed just $38 million in North America and $68 million worldwide. Forget the reported $310 million breakeven point Warner Bros. touted for the $170 million superhero spin-off. Opening barely above Travis Knight’s Masters of the Universe (which now sits at $109 million worldwide from a $60 million global launch), Supergirl will be lucky to crack $150 million globally by the end.

Yes, it’s worth noting that Amazon MGM Studios’ He-Man reboot, which sold itself mostly via early-1980s nostalgia and/or a franchise starter that resembled the slew of post-Avengers “like a Batman Begins, but not” origin story franchise-nonstarters, will still earn less on a similar over/under $170 million budget. The issue, such as it were, is that the high-profile whiff of this respective DC superhero movie is going to be that much more impactful because it’s a DC superhero movie.