DC Studios/Warner Bros.
'Supergirl' has proven to be a disappointing follow-up to 'Superman'
Supergirl, the DCU’s live-action follow-up to the largely well-received James Gunn-directed Superman from last year, has completely bombed at the box office, making just $38 million in the United States. To put into context just how bad of an opening weekend it had, it made less money at the domestic box office than the infamous 2022 Jared Leto-led disaster Morbius.
While Supergirl was already chum in the water to become a tool in the culture war, star Milly Alcock, just 26-years-old and Australian — this matters because the nuances of the country’s culture war is not native to her nor is her understanding of it innate — dumped a metaphorical bucket of blood into the tide when she made a comment in an interview about being a woman in the superhero movie machine.
“It definitely made me aware that simply existing as a woman in that space is something that people comment on,” Alcock told Vanity Fair. “We have become very comfortable having this weird ownership of women’s bodies. I can’t really stop them. I can only be myself.”
Supergirl made less money at the domestic box office in its opening weekend than Morbius and The Flash
In addition to Morbius, Supergirl has had a worse opening than The Flash and The Marvels, and is not expected to earn much over $200 million by the end of its theatrical run (against a reported $170M budget). Its failure has thus been latched onto by both sides of the socio-political spectrum.
I’m sorry but supergirl isn’t flopping bc it’s bad, it’s flopping bc ppl hate women and have no desire to go watch the damn movie and form their own opinion abt it.
— ₊ ⊹ ♱ (@adaintyghoul) June 28, 2026
Supergirl is a total bust and will lose several hundred million dollars. The “star” attacking Christians and dads helped tank it. Studios have to protect themselves from these moron actors and actresses giving woke interviews and tanking the movies. Crazy this keeps happening.
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) June 27, 2026
Not only is Supergirl providing fuel to the fire of the cultural wars, it’s also resparked the long-running debate about the state of the comic book movie industry. There is where my opinion comes into it, as my main complaint about the film — without having seen it yet — is that its first trailer made it look like a Guardians of the Galaxy rehash.
Critics and audiences alike have largely panned the movie as suffering from all of the predictable flaws associated with the genre’s last-decade or so: a predictable, uninspiring plot, shoddy third-act writing, terrible CGI, brownish-gray color palette, and so on. The popular movie podcast The Big Picture titled its episode about it “The Comic Book Movie Death Rattle.”
Its box office outcome has been so calamitous that DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran — he and James Gunn are co-CEOs — gave a statement to the New York Times on Sunday, not even a full 48 hours after the film hit theaters, to defend their overall strategy.
“While Supergirl didn’t meet our box office expectations, it’s just one component of a broader, long-term strategy at DC Studios that we remain confident in,” Safran said.
Despite all of the deliberation about Supergirl, one core truth is being ignored. It’s not about comments made by the lead actress whom the average audience member has likely never heard of, nor a symptom of moviegoers habits. It’s about making a good movie — the end. By most accounts, Supergirl was not one.