Supergirl "Didn't meet our box office expectations," says DC Studios co-CEO

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DC Studios boss Peter Safran has said he remains “confident” in his company’s superhero film slate, despite Supergirl’s slow box office weekend. Flying into the world’s cinemas over the weekend, Supergirl has drummed up the kind of box office numbers that will probably leave those in the industry scrambling to offer their own interpretations. Was ... Supergirl “Didn’t meet our box office expectations,” says DC Studios co-CEO

DC Studios boss Peter Safran has said he remains “confident” in his company’s superhero film slate, despite Supergirl’s slow box office weekend.

Flying into the world’s cinemas over the weekend, Supergirl has drummed up the kind of box office numbers that will probably leave those in the industry scrambling to offer their own interpretations.

Was its somewhat low $68m worldwide haul due to superhero fatigue? Competition from Toy Story 5, still at number one on its second week of release, and the viral horror sensation, Obsession? Did audiences stay home due to the heatwave and the appeal of the World Cup? Tepid reviews? All of the above?

Obviously, there’s also the suspect argument that movie-goers don’t show up for female superhero movies, which ignores all the examples that have been major hits – Wonder Woman made over $800m in 2017 and Captain Marvel took in more than billion dollars two years after that.

Speaking to The New York Times over the weekend, DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran admitted that Supergirl hadn’t done as well as his company had hoped, but said he remained confident about he and partner James Gunn’s remaining slate of superhero films.

“While ‘Supergirl’ didn’t meet our box office expectations,” he said, “it’s just one component of a broader, long-term strategy at DC Studios that we remain confident in.”

As it stands, DC Studios has two movies with confirmed release dates – Clayface, out this October, and Superman sequel Man Of Tomorrow, due out in July 2027. These all form part of the DC Universe’s first chapter, collectively titled Gods and Monsters. Others on the way, but without dates, include The Brave And The Bold, Swamp Thing and a rebooted Wonder Woman movie.

There’s also, of course, Matt Reeves’ The Batman Part II, though that’s considered a separate entity from the DCU. It’s due out in October 2027.

Warner has plenty of comic book movies on the horizon, then. But the genre as a whole has something of a question mark over it; while there’s clearly an audience for them, it seems clear we’re past the point where superhero films regularly make around $1bn, and where even more obscure characters like Shazam can make a tidy profit (the first film made over three times its $90m-ish budget in 2019.

Supergirl, which generally seems to be regarded as good but not a classic (here’s our review), may have been the victim of bad timing. What remains to be seen is whether director James Watkins’ Clayface, which really leans into the trendy horror genre, will make a bigger splash.

Or, in the rival camp, there’s Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday. The studio appears to be spending untold sums on making a movie that can recapture the pre-pandemic excitement that drove Avengers: Endgame to a worldwide gross of almost $3bn. If it too fails to do as expected, then studio bosses will likely be looking again at how much they’re spending on these effects-filled rollercoasters.