‘Supergirl’ Global Opening Numbers Look Even Bleaker Overseas, and the CinemaScore Makes It Worse
The domestic disappointment for ‘Supergirl‘ is only half the story. As tracked by Luiz Fernando, the film’s international performance is developing into an even more alarming picture, with overseas markets adding just $5.7 million on Friday across 78 territories, bringing the combined five-day international cumulative to $11.1 million and pushing the global opening to a projected range of $62 million to $77 million.
According to Deadline, the global total is currently hovering around a $75 million start, with $11 million coming from 78 overseas markets across 40,000 screens, a figure that lands well below the $80 million-plus global launch the studio had been targeting in the weeks leading up to release.
Japan delivered one of the most deflating individual market results, with ‘Supergirl’ opening in second place behind ‘Michael,’ earning roughly $380,000 on its first Friday. That number ranks as the second-lowest Friday opening for a DC film in the country over the past thirteen years, beaten only by ‘Shazam: Fury of the Gods.’
The audience reception data is adding more pressure on top of the soft numbers. ‘Supergirl’ received a B- CinemaScore from opening-day audiences, which is lower than ‘The Flash,’ ‘Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,’ ‘Shazam: Fury of the Gods,’ and even the tabloid-damaged ‘Green Lantern.’ Only ‘The Marvels,’ which earned a B, and no major DC film in recent memory, came in comparably poor. A PostTrak definite recommend score of 52% is also substantially below what studio tentpoles of this scale typically need to sustain momentum.
Demographically, the film skewed heavily toward men over 25, with that group representing 41% of ticket sales, while men and women under 25, the generation Warner Bros. had specifically targeted with its Ulta Beauty partnership and youth-oriented marketing push, came in at just 18% and 15% respectively. The failure to crack the Gen Z audience is particularly consequential for a film built around a young, fresh-faced lead.
Warner Bros. insiders have reportedly set an internal victory line of $300 million worldwide, a number that was already a considerably modest target given the film’s reported production budget of $170 million to $186 million before marketing. The studio has pointed to Matthias Schoenaerts’s overseas appeal as a potential lift for international markets, though with France and Belgium not opening until the following weekend, the early foreign footprint remains narrow.
The saving grace in the numbers may lie off-screen. ‘Supergirl’ secured more than $100 million in media value from its global promotional partner campaign, described by DC Studios as the largest in the brand’s history, a factor that could meaningfully lower the real-world break-even threshold regardless of what the theatrical total ultimately looks like. But with the CinemaScore, audience metrics, and international momentum all pointing in the same direction, the road to any version of profitability is looking considerably longer than it did just a week ago.
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