‘Supergirl’ Opening Weekend Crumbles as Weak Walk-Up Numbers Spell Trouble for the DCU’s Sophomore Effort

The early returns for ‘Supergirl’ are in, and they are making for uncomfortable reading at Warner Bros. and DC Studios. As highlighted by @GlobalBoxOffice, domestic walk-up numbers for the film’s opening Friday came in well below what the studio had hoped for, pointing to a weekend total that could land significantly short of break-even territory.

According to Deadline, ‘Supergirl’ is tracking toward a $40 million opening weekend, with Friday currently looking like $18 million when the $7.8 million in preview grosses are folded in. That figure lands at the low end of even the most recently revised projections, which had already been quietly cut from over $55 million several weeks ago down to a $47 million to $50 million range as reviews started rolling in.

The critical reception has been a meaningful drag on audience enthusiasm heading into the weekend. ‘Supergirl’ has landed a 57% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, with an audience score of 76%, a figure that is higher than recent DC entries like ‘The Flash,’ ‘Shazam: Fury of the Gods,’ and ‘Joker: Folie à Deux,’ but nowhere near the 83% critics score that ‘Superman’ rode to a $125 million opening last summer.

The contrast between the two DCU films is stark. ‘Superman’ earned $22 million in previews alone before opening to $125 million domestically and eventually grossing $618.7 million worldwide. Those numbers set a bar that ‘Supergirl’ was always going to struggle to clear, partly because Kara Zor-El is a considerably less mainstream character than her cousin, and partly because the general superhero fatigue cycle has continued to tighten its grip on the box office.

‘Toy Story 5’ is meanwhile expected to win the weekend again with an estimated $80 million to $90 million in its second frame, leaving ‘Supergirl’ to fight for second place in a weekend the animated sequel already owns.

The financial math is not encouraging. With a reported production budget of $170 million and marketing costs likely approaching a similar sum, the film would need to gross somewhere between $300 million and $425 million globally to be considered any kind of success, depending on how the studio calculates its break-even point. For context, ‘The Flash,’ which opened to $55 million domestically, ultimately finished with $271.4 million worldwide, well short of profitability.

The only other live-action ‘Supergirl’ film before this one was a notorious 1984 box office flop, and while this version is a far more technically accomplished film, the commercial parallels are not ones Warner Bros. will want to revisit. The studio has more than 80 promotional partners delivering over $100 million in media value tied to the film’s release, which could meaningfully affect the actual break-even threshold, but that cushion only stretches so far when the walk-up numbers are this soft.

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