Supergirl falters at North American box office with $49 million, testing DC Studios’ reboot

In a setback for Warner Bros. and its DC Studios division, Supergirl arrived to weak ticket sales over the weekend.

The movie, which cost US$170 million (S$220 million) to make and tens of millions more to market, was on pace to take in about US$38 million from Thursday through Sunday at theatres in the US and Canada – about 24 per cent below pre-release analyst projections of US$50 million that had already been considered disappointing. It took in US$30 million more overseas.

The film received a “rotten” rating from review-aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. Ticket buyers were similarly unimpressed, giving Supergirl a B-minus grade in CinemaScore exit polls.

Audiences have become much more selective about superhero movies since their heyday in the 2010s. In 2022, Black Adam, starring Dwayne Johnson, arrived to a disappointing US$67 million in opening-weekend ticket sales, while Morbius, with Jared Leto, had a disastrous US$39 million debut.

Still, box-office analysts on June 28 noted an uncomfortable truth: Female-led superhero movies have been rejected almost uniformly over the past five years or so, perhaps reflecting a resurgent misogyny among the core fan base, which is largely male.

Before its release, Supergirl became caught up in a now-familiar cycle of online abuse, with some fanboys attacking Australian actress Milly Alcock’s casting and appearance. Warner Bros. executives said they were surprised by the ferocity of the backlash and its reach.

“While Supergirl did not meet our box-office expectations, it is just one component of a broader, long-term strategy at DC Studios that we remain confident in,” said Peter Safran, co-chairman and co-chief executive of DC Studios.

Theatres in the US and Canada were expected to sell about US$153.5 million in tickets in total over the weekend, up 18 per cent from the same weekend in 2025, according to Rentrak, which compiles box-office data.

Toy Story 5 was the No. 1 movie in North America for the second weekend, collecting an estimated US$70 million, for a new domestic total of US$297 million and a worldwide total of US$585 million. Supergirl was second.

While a setback, the result for Supergirl does not necessarily undermine the broader strategy that executives have put in place for DC Studios.

Box-office analysts are optimistic, for instance, about the fortunes of its next movie, Clayface, which arrives in October. NYTIMES