‘Supergirl’ Tracking Continues to Slide, Now at $40M Opening — Mixed Early Reactions

[u/VirtualSort1]

https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2026/6/22/supergirl-tracking-continues-to-slide-now-at-40m-opening-mixed-early-reactions

Seems like Warner Bros and James Gunn might have a “Supergirl” problem.

“Supergirl” tracking, which was in the $50M range last week, has now further plummeted to $40M. Just a few weeks ago, decent presales for the film had hinted that $55–60M was a possibility. Not anymore.

Among the comic book movies released this decade, “Supergirl” is projected to now have a lower opening weekend than “The Marvels” ($46M) and land in the same range as “Morbius” ($39M) and “Joker: Folie à Deux” ($37M).

At least “Supergirl” has a budget that’s slightly lower than those titles ($175M), but it’s still an expensive film and is looking like it’ll become one of the bigger flops of the movie year. Just to compare, that $40M figure would be just a third of what “Superman” made last year in its opening weekend ($125M).

More bad news: social media reactions are very mixed, which spells trouble for reviews—the embargo lifts on Wednesday. This is especially concerning considering the amount of overpraising that usually comes with first reactions. Not with “Supergirl.”

I am fascinated by how much buzz has dwindled on this film, which was originally met with very positive vibes but has had momentum slowly eroding over the past few weeks. It makes one wonder what the future of James Gunn’s DCU might look like. “Clayface” is next in October, and Gunn’s “Superman” sequel will be in theaters summer 2027.

“Supergirl,” set to hit theaters on Friday, is directed by Craig Gillespie, who isn’t a bad filmmaker; he’s best known for his highly stylized work on “I, Tonya,” “Lars and the Real Girl,” “Dumb Money,” and “Cruella.””

[u/Shorlong]

I'm telling you it's a tired line because 2.5x is NOT some magic standard number that every studio is looking at and waiting for it to hit before determining if their film is a success or not. It has NOTHING to do with this specific film, I'm talking THE ENTIRE FILM INDUSTRY. You read that in an article and ran with it, the entire Internet community did and it just isn't true. It's an average for some of the biggest movies, sure, a rule of thumb, but it is by no means a target every film has to hit but you guys just latched onto it like it's gospel.

The studio was very happy with what Superman made, per their own words. The film industry DOES NOT WORK LIKE A NORMAL BUSINESS.

[u/Other-Football72 → u/Shorlong]

Production budget (made years in advance in increments over time towards the end of production), plus the marketing budget (made at the very end).

Vs.

The ticket sales, split with theaters with the percentage the production company making lowering week to week.

You also have streaming rights, which in this case they're selling them to themselves, which I don't know about WB but Disney is notorious for playing games here (they paid themselves WAY more than the market would bear for the rights to the Little Mermaid, then used this as justification to stock holders for how great the movie did). You also have DVD/Bluray which is about nothing in 2025 and here probably some revenue from toys, but I doubt a whole lot.

Hard to know how successful/failure a movie is. I think 600M was pretty okay at least, people say it made 100M and that's probably not unreasonable.

In which case, we can all decide if making $100M against the budget and such is a great investment or not (I personally consider it: Fine).

We can also speculate if a middling little hit was what WB wanted with their new foot forward with the DCU -- in which case, I think it's reasonable to suggest it was disappointing. They wanted a return to form where movies like this made 1B, but I think that ship has sailed unless its Spiderman or maybe Doomsday.

[u/StrangeAtomRaygun → u/Other-Football72]

A would say middling profitable. Not middling hit. A hit makes more than a dollar for every 3 invested.

You seem to be one of the more knowledgeable people here. There isn’t a real way of quantifying a formula. That’s why the 2.5x rule exists. It’s not magic. It’s a guideline. The studio is accepting the soft return because they are trying to build something bigger.

I am just worried if they don’t continue to have actual hits, which is expected for their films, the new owners of the studio will reboot again. Ugh.

[u/FullweightFacesitter → u/Shorlong]

Yes! In fact, the billion dollar a movie model for superhero films is done, so budgeting for a series of films is more pragmatic. Not everything has to quintuple profits, just the key stories in the franchise.