Supergirl box office collapse is now historically bad, and Gunn’s timing couldn’t be worse
Supergirl just posted one of the worst second-weekend drops in superhero movie history, a 73% nosedive that dropped it to fourth place, behind a faith-based George Washington indie. Here’s how bad it really is, the behind-the-scenes drama that didn’t help, and why the timing is brutal for James Gunn.
The verdict is in on Supergirl, and it’s ugly. After a soft opening, DC’s latest didn’t just fade in weekend two, it fell off a cliff, posting one of the worst second-weekend drops in superhero movie history.
Here’s exactly how bad the collapse is, how it stacks up against the genre’s most infamous bombs, and why the timing could not be worse for James Gunn‘s DC Studios.
How bad was the drop?
Let’s start with the number, because it’s brutal.
Supergirl plummeted roughly 73% in its second weekend, cratering from its $37.1 million opening to a projected $8.5 to $10 million. That sent it tumbling to fourth place, and here’s the truly humbling part: it didn’t just lose to the family juggernauts Minions & Monsters and Toy Story 5. It lost to Young Washington, an Angel Studios faith-based biopic about George Washington that opened to $16-17 million.
Getting out-grossed by a modestly-reviewed indie about a Founding Father, in your second weekend, as a $170 million DC tentpole, is a special category of failure. Its ten-day domestic total sits around $48.8 million, with a worldwide tally near $83 million.
Putting the collapse in context
Here’s where it lands in the record books, and it’s not a shelf you want to be on.
A 73% second-weekend drop puts Supergirl in the company of the genre’s most notorious flops. To line it up:
Joker: Folie à Deux (2024): -81% (the record holder)
The Marvels: -78%
Supergirl: ~-73%
Morbius: -73.8%
The Flash: -72%
That makes Supergirl roughly the third-worst second-weekend superhero drop in modern history. It fell harder than Black Adam (-59%), Madame Web (-61%), and Shazam! Fury of the Gods (-69%). When your movie’s trajectory is being compared to Morbius and The Flash, the diagnosis writes itself.
So why did nobody show up?
Here’s the honest, un-spun answer, and it’s not complicated.
The movie is mid. Not bad, mid. Supergirl earned okay-not-great reviews (high 60s on Rotten Tomatoes) and a soft B CinemaScore, the profile of a perfectly watchable film that gives nobody an urgent reason to rush out and see it. And that used to be survivable. It isn’t anymore.
In 2026, with ticket prices high and streaming just weeks away, “fine” doesn’t put people in seats. Audiences now save their money for must-see events and wait to stream everything else. Supergirl tested in the 60s for eight months before release, and audiences ended up rendering that exact same verdict, twice: once by opening soft, and again by refusing to come back. It’s not a mystery. It’s a mid movie meeting an economy with no patience for mid.
For the record: yes, the film waded through some culture-war noise during its campaign. But that’s a footnote, not the cause. Controversial movies survive all the time when they’re must-see, and un-controversial ones bomb constantly when they’re forgettable. The load-bearing problem here is the product. (The clearest proof: a faith-based Washington biopic just beat it. That’s not politics, that’s audiences spending on what they actually want.)
The behind-the-scenes drama that didn’t help
Here’s the part that turned a soft movie into a cautionary tale.
As a recent Hollywood Reporter exposé revealed, Supergirl had a troubled post-production. The studio ran a “bakeoff,” testing director Craig Gillespie’s cut against a studio cut overseen by Gunn and co-CEO Peter Safran. The studio’s version won by a razor-thin two points, and both cuts reportedly tested underwhelmingly, never escaping the 60s.
That detail matters, because it means there’s no secret masterpiece being suppressed.
This wasn’t a great film ruined in the edit; by all accounts, no version of Supergirl was testing like a hit. A troubled edit on top of a so-so script produced exactly what the numbers now reflect: a movie nobody was excited about.
And the Mr. Terrific spinoff? A footnote now
Here’s a quick reality check on DC’s silver lining.
Amid the wreckage, DC is reportedly developing a Mr. Terrific series, spun off from the character who stole Superman last summer. On any other week, that’d be a fun headline. This week, it’s a footnote, a hopeful TV project announced quietly inside the very report documenting Supergirl‘s collapse. It’s a nice idea. It’s also not the thing anyone’s talking about.
Why the timing is brutal for James Gunn
Here’s the part that turns a bad weekend into a genuine problem, and it has nothing to do with the movie itself.
Supergirl is only the second film in Gunn and Safran’s ambitious ten-year DCU plan. A flop this early is survivable when the boss who hired you still owns the company. But that’s exactly what’s changing.
Paramount Skydance, controlled by the Ellison family (David Ellison as CEO, with his father Larry Ellison’s fortune backstopping the deal), is in the process of acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery in a roughly $110 billion merger. The deal has been approved by shareholders and is expected to close by the end of 2026. When it does, DC Studios, and Gunn’s entire plan, lands in new hands.
And here’s the kicker, per reporting: Gunn and Safran’s contracts as DC co-chiefs reportedly run out around the end of 2026 or 2027. Line that up with the calendar and the danger is obvious. The new owners don’t have to fire anyone or stage an ugly public breakup. They can simply let the contracts expire, then decide whether to renew the people they inherited, along with the plan they inherited, and the flops they inherited.
That’s a very different conversation than the one Gunn signed up for. A rough start is easy to weather when the owner who backed you is still in charge. It’s a lot harder when a brand-new regime walks in, looks at a historically bad Supergirl drop, and holds the power to simply let your deal lapse. David Ellison has already met with Gunn and Safran, and by most accounts, their future is now his call to make.
Supergirl box office: what the collapse really means
Supergirl‘s roughly 73% second-weekend drop isn’t just a bad weekend, it’s one of the worst superhero collapses on record, and it happened for the simplest reason in the business: the movie was mid, and mid doesn’t sell tickets in 2026. The behind-the-scenes cut drama and the campaign controversies are side notes. The main event is a forgettable film meeting an audience that no longer shows up for forgettable films.
The cruel twist is the timing. Gunn built a ten-year plan on the assumption he’d have years to find his footing. Instead, he’s got a historic flop two movies in, a Mr. Terrific spinoff nobody’s paying attention to, and an Ellison-run regime walking through the door with the power to let his contract quietly expire. Good movies buy you patience. Mid ones, at the worst possible moment, buy you a countdown clock.
The Ellisons are coming. And right now, “so-so and expensive” is not the résumé you want on the desk when they arrive.
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Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
Hat Tips:
Deadline (via Forbes, CBR, and ScreenRant) (July 2026), verified for the second-weekend figures (the ~73% drop, the $8.5-10 million weekend, the fourth-place finish behind Young Washington, the $48.8 million ten-day domestic and ~$83 million worldwide totals), and the historical comparisons (Joker: Folie à Deux -81%, The Marvels -78%, Morbius -73.8%, The Flash -72%, and the placement as roughly the third-worst superhero second-weekend drop)
The Hollywood Reporter (July 2026), verified for the Supergirl post-production “bakeoff” (Gillespie’s cut versus the studio cut winning by two points, both testing in the 60s), the reported Mr. Terrific series development, and the reporting that Gunn and Safran’s DC Studios contracts run out around the end of 2026 or 2027
SEC filings, Wikipedia, and Superman Homepage (February-July 2026), verified for the Paramount Skydance acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (the ~$110 billion, ~$30-31-per-share all-cash deal backstopped by the Ellison Family Trust and RedBird, shareholder approval on April 23, 2026, the expected close by end of 2026 pending regulators, David Ellison as incoming steward of DC, and his meetings with Gunn and Safran)