DC boss Peter Safran has reacted to Supergirl's disappointing box-office performance, defending the studio's broader strategy for the superhero universe. Now in cinemas, the film starring House of the Dragon's Milly Alcock in the titular role only grossed $38 million in the US on its first four-day weekend against a budget of $170 million.
This data, which saw Supergirl swipe an additional $30 million outside of the US, appears to highlight an ongoing trend of female-fronted superhero films underperforming at the box office. This goes hand in hand with a surge of online abuse from some toxic fringes in the largely male fanbase, with Alcock being on the receiving end of disparaging comments before the film even released, as she told Variety.
As Supergirl's poor box-office opening fell below the initial $50 million projection for the first weekend, Safran renewed DC Studio's confidence in the long-term strategy for the superhero franchise.
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"While Supergirl didn't meet our box office expectations, it's just one component of a broader, long-term strategy at DC Studios that we remain confident in," the co-chairman and co-chief executive of DC Studios told The New York Times.
Box office expert David A Gross confirmed "a weak opening" for the new superhero film in his Substack newsletter, FranchiseRe.
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In his analysis, Gross noticed how in the pre-Covid years, female-led superhero films fared comparatively better at the box office, with titles like 2016's Suicide Squad, an ensemble film arguably led by Margot Robbie, and Wonder Woman grossing $747 and $822 million worldwide respectively in August 2016 and August 2017.
In the MCU, Brie Larson's Captain Marvel surpassed the billion dollar mark in March 2019, taking home $1.13 billion in March 2019.
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The sequels for each of these, however, "crashed in stunning fashion", Gross wrote, as the data appears to point to fewer opportunities for female-fronted superhero stories to expand to series successfully.
Meanwhile, the so-called "superhero fatigue", coined to refer to the audience's declining interest in superhero franchises at large, might've played a part in some box-office bombs of recent years, including DC's Black Adam and Sony and Marvel's Morbius and Madame Web.
Supergirl is in cinemas now.
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Reporter, Digital Spy
Stefania is a freelance writer specialising in TV and movies. After graduating from City University, London, she covered LGBTQ+ news and pursued a career in entertainment journalism, with her work appearing in outlets including Little White Lies, The Skinny, Radio Times and Digital Spy.
Her beats are horror films and period dramas, especially if fronted by queer women. She can argue why Scream is the best slasher in four languages (and a half).
