Supergirl Box Office Opening Weekend Officially Lower Than The Flash

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When Superman opened last summer, it gave DC a much-needed win at the box office, beating out a trio of new Marvel releases to become the highest-grossing superhero movie of the year. It was a great start for the new DC Universe franchise, building excitement for what James Gunn and Co. had in store. About a year later, the Super Family returned to theaters with Supergirl, which was hoping to maintain the DCU’s forward momentum. Unfortunately, director Craig Gillespie’s film never had the strongest prospects. Heading into the weekend, even the high end of projections topped out at around $50+ million. That meant there was a good chance Supergirl would open below previous DC disappointments like The Flash, and that’s exactly what’s happened.

According to Deadline, Supergirl is now on track to gross just $40 million domestically in its first three days. That figure is obviously a far cry from Superman‘s $125 million debut, and it’s also well below The Flash, which opened with $55 million back in 2023. Supergirl‘s opening is above only six DC Extended Universe installments, all but one of which came out post-pandemic when the theatrical landscape had changed dramatically. To see how Supergirl compares to the DCEU and DCU, check out the table below:

Will Supergirl Have Strong Legs at the Box Office?

This is hardly the start DC and Warner Bros. were hoping for when they scheduled Supergirl to premiere in the thick of summer movie season. The studio was obviously confident in the project, but Supergirl was hamstrung by mixed reviews (57% on Rotten Tomatoes) and faced stiff competition from Pixar’s Toy Story 5. After scoring the year’s biggest box office opening a week ago, the animated sequel is set to easily retain the No. 1 spot with $70+ million in its second weekend, buoyed by the positive buzz it received. Supergirl was always going to have an uphill climb dealing with a new acclaimed Pixar film, but it ended up being completely overshadowed because there wasn’t much enthusiasm for it.

It’s true that a movie can overcome a soft debut by holding well in subsequent weekends, but that’s unlikely to happen in the case of Supergirl. The multiplex is only going to get more crowded in the coming weeks, with Minions & Monsters and Moana arriving in the first half of July. Barring something unforeseen, Supergirl is going to slide down the charts beginning next week. Big-budget genre titles have a tendency to be frontloaded, meaning they do most of their damage during their opening weekend, when the die-hard fans come out to see the film as soon as possible. If general audiences don’t find the movie appealing, it isn’t going to stick around. One only has to look at The Mandalorian and Grogu for proof; after posting a solid $81.6 million domestically in its first three days ($98 million over the extended Memorial Day frame), the Star Wars spinoff dropped a whopping 70.1% in its second weekend.

If Supergirl had earned stronger word of mouth, it could have had some staying power, but it could end up going down as a loss for WB. The production budget is said to be in the range of $170-186 million. That’s low enough that Supergirl didn’t need to rewrite the box office record books to turn a profit, but it needed to score a higher debut than $40 million. A general rule of thumb is that a movie’s break even point is around double the budget, so Supergirl needs to bring in at least $340-372 million globally to recoup its costs (production budgets do not account for marketing and distribution expenses). The Flash did not come anywhere close to that amount during its tumultuous run ($271.4 million worldwide), so Supergirl is going to have a hard time hitting that mark.

It’ll be interesting to see how DC Studios and WB respond to Supergirl‘s box office performance. Milly Alcock’s Kara Zor-El is set to be a huge part of the DCU moving forward, with the actress reprising her role in next year’s Man of Tomorrow. Since Alcock’s performance is considered one of the highlights of an otherwise divisive movie, odds are she will be sticking around. The bigger question is whether or not she headlines another solo movie, and if Supergirl has any impact on what DC Studios green lights moving forward. In the past, Gunn has mentioned that he “probably [isn’t] going to do certain movies with characters who [audiences] don’t know” since “it’s harder to get people in the theater.” As DC irons out its upcoming film slate, the studio may decide to stick with characters who are surer bets, like Superman and Batman.

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