The Girl of Steel has had a rough few weeks. DC Studios' Supergirl has seen record-breaking lows for a modern day DC film at the box office in its short run, which is pretty incredible in and of itself considering that DC itself has seen a number of misfires and failures in recent years. It's a real shame that Supergirl brought the most recent loss because the fate of the new DC Universe may well be up in the air as a result of its huge underperformance.
Milly Alcock took center stage as Kara Zor-El in the summer blockbuster, reprising her role from the previous summer's Superman. Unfortunately, the film couldn't replicate that movie's buzz, but the hopes are that an early digital release might help soften at least a fraction of the box office blow. Unfortunately, that may be even less likely after the film's record-setting performance at the box office this weekend.
Supergirl set for biggest Week 4 drop in DC box office history
After suffering major defeats at the box office since it first flew onto screens in June, Supergirl is on track to experience its harshest drop yet. It won't come as a surprise to learn that the film is currently projected to make significantly less than it did last week, but what might surprise you is just how history-making that decline is going to be.
The film is currently projected to make $1.4 million at the domestic box office this weekend, indicating a 62% drop off from its Week 3 takings, which were already a pretty historic drop compared to the previous week. If this turns out to be the cast - and it's looking very likely - Supergirl will make history for having the harshest Week 4 drop of all time for a modern day DC franchise movie.
To put that in perspective, here is the list of the sharpest Week 4 box office declines for all modern DC movies just to give you an idea of how record-breaking Supergirl's weekend is shaping up to be:
- Supergirl (2026) - 62% drop projected
- Joker: Folie à Deux (2024) - 60% drop
- Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023) - 55% drop
- The Flash (2023) - 55% drop
- Blue Beetle (2023) - 46% drop
- The Suicide Squad (2021) - 41% drop
- Black Adam (2022) - 40% drop
- Shazam! (2019) - 39% drop
It's also worth pointing out that, if projections hold up, Supergirl would also hold the record for the worst-performing DC movie on the fourth week of its box office run (excluding Joker: Folie à Deux's $600,000 Week 4 performance, which was influenced by the film's early digital release and reduced theater output), with its projected $1.4 million earnings marking a worse performance than Shazam! Fury of the Gods' $1.6 million takings on its fourth weekend in 2023.
The optics of this aren't good for many reasons, but specifically due to where each one lands in their respective franchises. Shazam! Fury of the Gods was one of the last installments in the former DC Extended Universe franchise, which was running on fumes and attempting to appeal to an audience that had tuned out due to the impending reset with the new DC Universe. Supergirl is just the second movie in that new DC Universe, coming off the back of that franchise's highly-successful first movie last year.
Unfortunately, Superman's success couldn't automatically translate to the second installment's box office numbers - therefore raising the questions surrounding superhero, franchise, and DC fatigue that plagued the final days of the DCEU all over again.
We mentioned Warner Bros. and DC Studios' decision to fast-track Joker 2's digital release after its catastrophic box office failure and it looks as if they might be looking to recreate that formula here for Supergirl. The film is now expected to be released on digital early, making its presence felt on PVOD platforms on July 28. While that's not quite as fast as Joker 2's, it's still not a good sign that DC has any faith in the film recovering at the box office. But, to be honest, we can't blame them for making this decision because there is absolutely no chance of box office recovery at this point. Even one of the studio's bosses, Peter Safran, issued a statement to address the film's failure after its unexpectedly low opening weekend.
While Supergirl's box office performance is inherently bad, the week-to-week declines are influenced by the reductions of movie screens in theaters. This is likely a combination of theaters simply moving on to more successful films in a very crowded summer landscape and DC allowing the movie to be pulled as it prepares for the digital release. While that digital release won't recoup much of the losses that the studio has faced due to the film's failure (Supergirl is shaping up to be one of the biggest box office bombs of all time), it is likely an easier qay to offset some of those losses than continually keeping it hanging around in movie theaters when audiences have moved on (especially as the theaters would take a portion of the revenue).
And audiences will be moving on to new genre movies. Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is already tearing up the silver screen with its larger-than-life opening weekend while Spider-Man: Brand New Day is gearing up to shatter records on July 31. Unfortunately, Supergirl just can't compete with either one of those releases - which is a reminder that the poor film was almost doomed to fail due to the decision to release it in the aftermath of Toy Story 5 and ahead of Minions and Monsters. It was always going to struggle going up against those two billion-dollar IPs in an era of superhero and franchise fatigue - especially as just the second movie in a brand new shared universe.
As it stands, Supergirl has grossed $120 million worldwide against a production budget of $170 - $186 million. This weekend's performance won't take it much further than that, and it certainly won't help it reach the unattainable heights of its reported $300 million break-even point. While the digital release - along with the inevitable home media and streaming releases - will help it somewhat in the long run, it's just too far behind its targets to ever be a profitable release for the studio. The film had simply too much pressure on its shoulders to succeed and it wasn't given the best opportunity to.
Quite frankly, Supergirl deserved better.
Supergirl is now in theaters.
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