When Jared Leto’s Morbius was released in 2022, everyone had a good laugh. The box office numbers were bad, there were plenty of memes circulating on social media, and the film proved that Leto was box office poison. Now, the DCU’s Supergirl is pretty much going the same route. The memes are already here, and the box numbers signal that this could be one of the biggest box office flops of 2026.
Warner Bros.’ second DC Universe tentpole didn’t just underperform in its second weekend; it collapsed, turning Supergirl into a genuine theatrical disaster.
A 74% Drop That Beats the Bombs It’s Being Compared To
Supergirl opened domestically to just $37.1 million. For context, that’s a number lower than 2024’s much-maligned Joker: Folie à Deux ($37.6 million).
But the real damage came in weekend two, when the film pulled in only $9.6 million domestically. And if you need the math, that’s a brutal 74% drop. That’s a steeper collapse than The Flash (-72.5%) and Morbius (-73.8%) both suffered.
James Gunn cannot be having a good time right now.
Globally, Supergirl has scraped past $100 million against a reported production budget in the $170–180 million range, before marketing. Industry estimates now put Warner Bros.’ potential loss on the film at around $120 million.
And with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day both on the release calendar in July, theater owners have little reason to keep Supergirl running. According to reports, Warner Bros. is already considering cutting its losses, with a PVOD digital release targeted for July 28, just over a month after the film hit theaters. That’s a faster turnaround than the 35 days Superman took last year.
The Bakeoff Nobody Wanted to Win
The most revealing part of the Supergirl story isn’t the box office results, however, it’s the behind-the-scenes drama that took place before the movie even got here. According to a Hollywood Reporter investigation, DC Studios and director Craig Gillespie were creatively misaligned for most of post-production. The report claims there were disagreements serious enough that the studio eventually built its own competing cut of the film and pitted it against Gillespie’s in test screenings.
Test scores reportedly never escaped the 60s (out of 100) across four screenings between December 2025 and March 2026, numbers in the same range as the shelved Batgirl and the critically drubbed Shazam! Fury of the Gods.
When the studio finally forced the head-to-head bakeoff, its own cut narrowly beat Gillespie’s, by only two points, and that’s the version that went into theaters.
Even the film’s now-infamous needle drop, a cover of Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle,” reportedly replaced an earlier James Gunn-selected cut of Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” that had tested better.
That behind-the-scenes dysfunction explains exactly why Supergirl didn’t work. You can’t make a movie by committee, tested into mediocrity and then expect it to fly.
The Critics-vs-Audience Gap Tells Its Own Story
What’s strange is that Supergirl has managed to gain fans. The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes sits at 76%, which is considerably higher than the 54% critics’ score. In other words, the people who actually paid to see it actually enjoyed it.
There were reports that suggested that the studio believed that the FIFA World Cup played a part in the box office numbers. But, given that Toy Story 5 performed so well, that probably isn’t true.
So, Is DC in Trouble?
DC Studios co-head Peter Safran told the New York Times the studio remains “confident” in its broader strategy despite Supergirl missing expectations. And there’s a reasonable industry argument that pulling James Gunn now over one underperforming film he didn’t even direct would be a big mistake. Gunn’s own slate, which includes his self-directed Man of Tomorrow, is pushing forward.
Still, one studio head quoted anonymously in the same Hollywood Reporter piece put the broader problem in blunt terms: “Gen Z does not care about superhero movies. That genre belongs to millennials.” Whether or not that’s the full explanation, Supergirl‘s collapse lands at a moment when the entire genre’s box office reliability is being questioned, not just DC’s execution of it.
Right now, Supergirl is worse off than Morbius, which pulled $167.5 million at the box office globally. It’s Morbin’ time again. This time it’s DC’s turn.
RELATED: Before Milly Alcock, Zack Snyder Had a Wildly Different Supergirl Planned — and DC Scrapped Her
