- DC Studios will not change its long-term vision for its cinematic universe
- Co-CEO Peter Safran told a journalist afterwards Supergirldisastrous launch
- The Milly Alcock-fronted film earned just $68 million in its opening weekend
Looks like it’s damage limitation time for DC Studios.
After Supergirl launched — and subsequently bombed — at the global box office, the comics giant’s film and television division appears to be refusing to change its broader plan for its nascent cinematic universe.
In fact, spoke to The New York Times (NYT) in the wake of Supergirl‘s disastrous opening weekend, DC Studios co-head Peter Safran insisted that he, studio head James Gunn and parent company Warner Bros. “remains confident in” the long-term vision for the DC Universe (DCU). This is despite Safran admitting that the film starring Milly Alcock “did not live up to our expectations at the box office”.
Such a statement is an understatement. After its release on June 26, the film was previously known as Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow a bit of a disastrous debut. As the NYT’s report noted, DCU Chapter One earned a paltry $68 million worldwide — $38 million in North America and $30 million internationally — in its first four days in theaters.
To put the first of these characters in a terrifyingly bleak context, the much-maligned Spider-Man spin-off film Morbiusaka the vampiric antihero movie starring Jared Leto, made just $39 million in North America during its own miserable opening weekend in late 2022.
What does SupergirlWhat’s even worse is that at the time of its release it has an average 56% critical score on review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. Meanwhile Morbius has been stuck at a life-draining 15% for almost four years. The fact that the second DCU Chapter One film made $1 million less in North America than Morbius should really set alarm bells ringing at DC Studios HQ.
Why didn’t Supergirl fly higher at the global box office?
There are numerous reasons that can be pointed to, including the ongoing superhero fatigue debate, prioritizing a new Supergirl film over, for example, a film featuring another of DC Comics’ so-called Holy Trinity in Batman and Wonder Woman, and – perhaps most crucially of all – word of mouth. After all, for the last of these reasons, movies can live or die by what critics and/or general audiences not only think about them, but say about them. You can see what I thought of the Alcock-led adventure via my own Supergirl review.
But I digress. In my opinion, there is another major reason for Supergirl’s incredibly poor performance worldwide – and it has to do with two powerful animated film franchises: Toy Story and Minions.
As for the former, the critical reception of its fifth installment was as mixed as Supergirlit was. Damn it, for me Toy Story 5 review, I gave it three out of five stars, which is the same score Supergirl served.
Nevertheless Toy Story‘s massive popularity means it can – for now at least – withstand any negativity that comes its way. That much is clearly based on its own worldwide ticket sales, which have seen Toy Story 5 grossed an almighty $585 million (per Variety) in its first 12 days in theaters.
Then we come to the other aforementioned billion-spinning film series i Minions. With his next story – Minions and monsters — set to not only arrive on July 3, but also predicted to earn a similarly huge sum of cash, the time of Supergirl‘s release couldn’t have been worse. Perhaps if the launch had been held back until August, when its biggest competitor would no doubt have been next Sneak movie, it could have gone higher.
For more on the latest DCU project, check out my Supergirl final explained piece to see how it potentially looked up The man of tomorrow also called the sequel to last year’s Superman film. Alternatively, you can see when Supergirl may come to HBO Max.
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