SUPERGIRL's Box Office Run Ends With a Historic DC Low, Earning Less Than MORBIUS and JOKER 2
The final numbers are in, and they paint a pretty rough picture for DC Studios. Supergirl has officially wrapped up its worldwide theatrical run, and the film's box office performance ended up being far worse than just about anyone expected.
While there was hope that the DCU could build on the momentum of last year's Superman, that simply didn't happen.
According to Box Office Mojo, Supergirl finished its global run with $125.8 million worldwide. That's more than $45 million behind Morbius, which pulled in $167 million back in 2022, and about $83 million less than Joker: Folie à Deux.
That also makes Supergirl the lowest-grossing DC movie since Catwoman back in 2004, which earned $82 million worldwide. Of course, that was more than two decades ago, and once inflation is factored in, Supergirl's performance looks even worse.
The disappointing result didn't come out of nowhere. The film opened with $37.1 million domestically and a little over $62 million worldwide, but it never found any momentum.
Week after week, audiences disappeared, and by the end of its run, Supergirl had earned only about what Superman made during its opening weekend alone last year.
Financially, that's a painful outcome. The movie reportedly carried a production budget of around $170 million, with marketing likely adding tens of millions more.
That leaves DC Studios looking at a significant loss on what was only the second theatrical release in James Gunn's new DC Universe. Meanwhile, Superman went on to earn more than $618 million worldwide, making the contrast between the two releases impossible to ignore.
It's hard to point to one single reason why audiences didn't show up. Starring Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El, the film followed Supergirl as she left her wild partying lifestyle behind to help a new friend get revenge on the villain responsible for harming Krypto the Superdog.
Critics were divided, and the movie currently sits at 56% on Rotten Tomatoes, which certainly isn't great, but it's still a much stronger critical score than Morbius, which sits at just 15%.
Even after the disappointing opening weekend, DC Studios wasn't ready to hit the panic button. Peter Safran previously acknowledged the rough start but said the studio remains "confident" in its long-term plans for the DCU.
Those plans continue with Lanterns arriving on television later this month, followed by Clayface hitting theaters this October.
Still, it's hard not to look at Supergirl and wonder how things went so wrong. It's honestly a shame to see the movie crash this hard because Supergirl is a great DC character and deserved a much stronger introduction into the new cinematic universe.
Looking back, releasing a solo Supergirl movie this early in the DCU probably wasn't the right move. The bigger issue, though, was the creative direction.
In my opinion, the filmmakers told the wrong story and completely mishandled the character. I've already shared my own pitch for what I think would've made for a much more exciting movie.
Lobo should've been the primary villain, serving as Kara's relentless obstacle as he hunted her across the galaxy. It feels like such an obvious setup. Instead, audiences got a weak, forgettable antagonist wrapped inside an uninspired story that never gave Supergirl the larger-than-life adventure she deserved.
Maybe that version of the movie wouldn't have turned into a billion-dollar hit, but it's hard to imagine it would've landed here.
Unfortunately, Supergirl now leaves theaters with one of the worst box office performances in modern DC history, and that's not the kind of record anyone involved wanted to set.