UPDATE: The Supergirl box office is looking like a $40M opening.
Supergirl‘s box office run has begun, and the official numbers confirm a soft start, in line with weeks of sliding projections.
Per Deadline, Supergirl opened to $13 million in its global first day, a number not far off the $12 million first day of Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day.
Domestically, previews came in at $7.8 million, combining Wednesday fan events and Thursday showtimes that began at 3 p.m.
That figure lands above The Marvels ($6.6M) but below The Flash ($9.7M). The film’s first wave of foreign markets added $5.2 million.
Those numbers come in just under the early estimates from box office analyst Jatinder Singh, who had pegged previews around $6.5 million, or $8.25 million with the early screenings, and called initial audience reception “bad.” The official $7.8 million confirms the soft trajectory he and others had flagged.
One note on the mechanics: that $7.8 million preview figure folds into Friday’s gross rather than being added separately on top of the weekend. It’s the leading edge of the opening, not bonus money.
Domestic opening forecasts have cooled from $50 million-plus to the upper $40 millions, with Deadline reporting the film carries a production cost of $170 million, though others put the net figure at $186 million.
How It Compares
Here’s roughly where Supergirl‘s $7.8 million preview night lands against other recent releases:
- Toy Story 5 — $17.5 million
- Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu — $12 million
- The Flash — $9.7 million
- Supergirl — $7.8 million (Wednesday + Thursday)
- The Marvels — $6.6 million
- Mortal Kombat II — $5.2 million
- Masters of the Universe — $4.4 million
It’s worth noting the comparison isn’t perfectly clean. Supergirl‘s $7.8 million includes Wednesday fan-event screenings, so it has showtimes baked in that the Thursday-only preview figures above don’t.
The more telling number will be Friday’s full-day gross, and how the film holds into Saturday. That’s where bad word-of-mouth shows up, and where a soft opening either stabilizes or collapses. Previews are just the first hint.
The Number Has Been Falling For Weeks
The upper-$40 million forecast caps a steady slide.
When tracking first opened, Deadline had Supergirl pegged for a $55 million-plus debut. The trade later walked its own number down to a $50M-$55M range, then again to the upper $40 millions on presales.
The independent trackers went lower still, with Box Office Theory and Box Office Pro cutting their estimates toward a floor as low as $34 million, a striking drop for a film backed by the biggest promotional partner campaign in DC Studios history.
The Reviews Didn’t Help
The soft tracking has been compounded by a mixed-to-negative reception.
Supergirl currently sits at 58% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, with a 77% audience score, both well below Gunn’s Superman a year ago at 83% critics and 90% audience. That said, the 77% audience score is higher than recent DC entries The Flash (63%), Shazam: Fury of the Gods (49%), and Joker: Folie à Deux (31%), and close to Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (79%).
In our own review, we found a strong Milly Alcock and good visuals dragged down by a bland villain, a repetitive script, and the familiar Gunn-era goofiness. The trades were harsher, as Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman called it one of the worst scripts he could remember.
Losing The Weekend To Toy Story 5
Whatever the previews translate to, the weekend’s bigger story is set: Supergirl is going to lose the No. 1 spot in its own opening frame to the second weekend of Toy Story 5.
We flagged that weeks ago, and Deadline has since confirmed it, stating there’s “no question” the Pixar sequel tops the chart. Toy Story 5‘s second weekend is projected at $88 million-$96 million — well above Supergirl‘s opening.
It adds up to a tough launch on every front: opening soft, reviewing poorly, playing second to a Pixar holdover, and doing it while Warner Bros. has quietly lowered the bar for what it will call a win. The full opening-weekend picture lands over the next three days.
