Could a Later Release for ‘Supergirl’ Have Proven Better For Her Box Office?

Supergirl’s opening weekend in cinemas was not as heroic as expected. As the second movie release of the new DCU under the all-seeing eye of James Gunn, this was meant to help dampen the protests against the new direction for the franchise. Instead, a financially disappointing debut has only confirmed that Supergirl was not the right choice to be one of the foundation movies of the rebuilt DCU.

When James Gunn announced his original slate of movies and TV shows that would form “Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters,” it was quite an eclectic mix of the expected and the surprising. Three years on, the clear plan for the reboot has become a lot less defined, as Gunn seemed to completely change the way the franchise would play out. This included an unexpected early appearance of Supergirl and a run of three Superman-centric movies (with a Clayface movie in there) before the live-action DCU even gets a sniff of its new Batman.

Last year, David Corenswet’s Superman did just enough to stay on the right side of the box office, even if it didn’t exactly soar as many expected. Now, the $125 million opening of that movie looks like a runaway success story compared to the $37.1 million Supergirl struggled to achieve domestically across its debut weekend. As well as falling well below the $50–55 million projections, Supergirl also had to suffer opening lower than the heavily-criticized Joker: Folie à Deux, and come second to Toy Story 5 in the chart. The question is: why has the opening weekend box office failed so badly, and can it recover?

In many ways, Supergirl seems simply like the wrong movie to follow directly after Superman and to appear so early in the DCU slate at all. While the character has a fanbase, her history on screen has not exactly been “franchise-leading” like that of some other superheroes. Add in “woke” accusations being thrown around in the usual way, and the struggle could not be anything but real. Turning three of the four DCU movies into a Superman-centric story has already alienated some fans who want a bit more variety in their superhero films. The delayed debut of other pivotal figures in the DC hierarchy — Batman and Wonder Woman chief among them — is making it harder than it needed to be to establish a connected, expansive universe, and Supergirl is taking the hit for James Gunn’s release decisions.

Supergirl Is Expected to Deliver a Big Financial Loss for Warner Bros.

Currently, industry commentators are estimating a box office loss of up to $120 million by the time Supergirl ends its theatrical run and attention turns to streaming. Gunn’s co-CEO of DC Studios, Peter Safran, has insisted that the lower-than-expected performance does not change the fact that everyone “remains confident” in the “long-term strategy” of the DC brand. That is all well and good, but it has piled pressure on next year’s Man of Tomorrow to make the kind of huge impact on audiences that its predecessors couldn’t — something that looks less likely than ever.

It is worth remembering that Marvel Studios faced similar challenges when kick-starting the Marvel Cinematic Universe back in 2008. The huge success of Iron Man was not repeated by The Incredible Hulk or Thor, and it really took the glue of The Avengers to bring everything together and make everyone believe a fully immersive universe of movies could work. Even so, Phase 1 of the MCU was filled with some of Marvel’s biggest characters straight out of the gate. Had Marvel made its first three movies all Iron Man-centric, maybe throwing in Ant-Man or the Guardians of the Galaxy in the middle, the story could have been very different.

As loved as Supergirl is within her own fandom, the character hasn’t really been one capable of delivering an event-level blockbuster. Early comparisons to Guardians of the Galaxy — which were ironic, given Gunn only produced rather than directed/wrote this one — did not really help, while even expected draws like Jason Momoa’s debut as Lobo could do only so much to counter the “seen it before” feeling many reported from early screenings.

Supergirl Could Have Soared at a Different Time

The hard truth is that the exact same Supergirl movie could have been released in a couple of years from now — following The Brave and the Bold, a Wonder Woman project and a few more universe-expanding stories — and the result could have been very different. Summer blockbusters are not the guaranteed draw they once were, and not enough audiences have invested yet in the DCU for Supergirl to be the heroine who pulls them into cinemas against juggernauts like Toy Story and Despicable Me‘s Minions.

The early stumble of James Gunn’s DCU plans will not suddenly see the franchise abandoned, but it is a sign that rebuilding interest in what should be one of the biggest franchises on the planet is no easy task. Gunn’s love of comic-book deep cuts perhaps needs to take a back seat in favour of putting the biggest and best-known heroes front and centre first, before bringing out the characters often seen as second-tier.

The next challenge for Gunn and Safran’s plans falls to the most unexpected movie on the slate. In October, Clayface will abandon the family-friendly tag to deliver an R-rated body-horror movie that could well end up more successful than Supergirl, given the recent run of horror hits dominating the box office. By that point, Supergirl will likely be available to stream on HBO Max, which will hopefully give the movie the shot at redemption it really needs.

(featured image: Warner Bros.)

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