Supergirl is a box office catastrophe. How can Marvel and DC save the superhero movie?
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- Supergirl (DC Studios, starring Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El) opened to $38m in North America and roughly $68m worldwide last weekend against a reported $170m budget before marketing, a result described as a crisis for James Gunn's new DCU just two films in.
- Marvel's MCU trained audiences to view minor-character films as stepping stones to team-ups, but Supergirl, Marvel's Eternals, Sony's Madame Web, and DC's The Flash have all failed to build momentum when lesser-known heroes lead their own films, the piece argues.
- DC has tapped It-films director Andy Muschietti to helm Batman: The Brave and the Bold within main continuity, separate from Robert Pattinson's standalone Batman, signalling a pivot toward better-known superheroes.
- Peter Safran, DC Studios co-head, said nothing has changed post-Supergirl, though Warner Bros may see things differently if the film is on course to lose $100m.
- Comic-book films in cinemas are noticeably fewer than a few years ago, and former Disney CEO Bob Iger has indicated the constant flurry of Disney+ spin-offs will be reined in.
- The piece questions whether planned projects such as James Mangold's Swamp Thing and proposed films based on Teen Titans, Bane, and Deathstroke will survive the rethink.
Why it matters: Warner Bros now faces a potential $100m loss on Supergirl and may shelve lesser-known-character projects like Swamp Thing and Teen Titans, while Disney pulls back on streaming spin-offs. As the source notes, if audiences switch off when heroes outside the obvious big names get solo films, the cross-pollination model that made Avengers-scale team-ups profitable loses its foundation for both studios.
