'Supergirl' Delivers Worst Box Office Returns for DC in More Than 20 Years

It's official: "Supergirl" is now the worst-earning DC theatrical release in 22 years. Two weeks out from its opening, the Milly Alcock-led film has crawled to roughly $108 million globally, adding less than a million dollars a day at this point. That puts it below every major DC release since Halle Berry's "Catwoman" back in 2004 — a film so widely panned it still carries an 8% Rotten Tomatoes score.

And the comparison doesn't even flatter "Supergirl." Catwoman actually earned less in raw dollars, around $82 million. But adjust that for inflation and you're looking at closer to $149 million in today's money — which means, in real terms, "Supergirl" might be the weaker performer of the two. It's currently sitting below DCEU-era misfires like Blue Beetle ($130 million worldwide) and Shazam! Fury of the Gods ($134 million), and would need another $22 million just to reach that low bar.

How bad was the drop-off, exactly?

Pretty bad. "Supergirl" opened to $37.1 million domestically and $62.6 million worldwide — already a soft number for a film that reportedly cost $170 million to make and another $120 million to market. Warner Bros. had been hoping for something closer to $50-55 million domestic going in. Then came weekend two, and things got worse fast: a 74% domestic drop, down to just $9.6 million, with another $9.4 million overseas. Mixed reviews didn't help either — 55% with critics, a B- CinemaScore — and neither did going up against "Toy Story 5" at the height of summer. Add it all up, and Warner Bros. is now staring at a projected loss somewhere between $100 million and $125 million.

Why did it happen? Analysts aren't shy about it. Exhibitor Relations' Jeff Bock put it simply: audience perception of the film just wasn't good, and Supergirl was never really the kind of character who could anchor an event-level blockbuster on her own. FranchiseRe's David A. Gross sees it as part of something bigger — superhero movies, he argues, just don't drive the box office the way they used to before the pandemic. The genre is running roughly $3.5 billion below its 2017-2019 peak every year now.

What does this mean for the rest of the DC Universe?

Here's what makes the timing especially painful. "Supergirl" was supposed to build on the momentum from 2025's "Superman," which pulled in $618 million worldwide and gave James Gunn and Peter Safran's rebooted DC Universe a genuinely solid launch. Instead, following it up with a lesser-known character on a nine-figure budget has opened up some uncomfortable questions — how does DC handle its second-tier heroes from here, and does the Guardians of the Galaxy playbook that worked so well for Marvel actually translate to DC, a studio still working to win back audience trust?

There is one small bright spot for Warner Bros.'s bottom line: Alcock, making her feature debut, was reportedly paid around $400,000 with no backend deal, so the losses aren't compounded further by a first-dollar gross arrangement. Still, the real test is coming. October's Clayface, made on a much leaner $40 million budget, and 2027's Superman: Man of Tomorrow will say a lot about whether "Supergirl" was a one-off stumble or the start of something worse. As Forbes noted, the DCU's ten-year plan can survive one miss. A second one right on its heels would be a much tougher problem to explain away.

For now, "Supergirl" is a pretty clear signal of how unforgiving the box office has gotten for anything short of an A-list comic book name — a lesson Warner Bros. and DC will be sitting with well past this summer.