Update: Supergirl is now getting called out in WBD’s Q2 earnings, with studio earnings crashing 89 percent, and David Zaslav has responded by hyping Man of Tomorrow and insisting there’s no DC strategy shift.
Happy 60th birthday, James Gunn: Supergirl is officially the lowest-grossing DC movie of all time.
The Craig Gillespie-directed film starring Milly Alcock finished its theatrical run after just 40 days with $125,901,095 worldwide, per BoxOfficePro — $72.1 million domestic and $53.8 million international — off a $37.1 million domestic opening back in June.
We're tracking every Man of Tomorrow development as it breaks. The complete rundown: Man of Tomorrow — release date, cast, and story.
Doing The Math: Worse Than Catwoman
In raw dollars, the last DC movie to gross less was 2010’s Jonah Hex at $10.9 million, and before that 1997’s Steel, which managed $1.7 million across two whole weekends.
Nobody counts those as real releases — they belong in the same asterisk bin as 1982’s Swamp Thing and the Salkinds’ 1984 Supergirl ($14.3 million), which were DC in name only.
Yes, that also means the Girl of Steel is now 0-for-2 in theaters.
Among actual DC tentpoles, the floor was 2004’s Catwoman at $82.4 million — 22 years ago.
Adjust for inflation, and Catwoman‘s haul works out to around $145 million in today’s dollars, which means Halle Berry’s Catwoman sold more tickets than Supergirl.
Toss out the asterisks, run the numbers, and Gunn’s Supergirl finishes at the very bottom of DC’s all-time chart.
The film even slid under the old DCEU floor: Blue Beetle ($130.8 million) and Shazam! Fury of the Gods ($134.1 million) both out-grossed it (and both produced by Peter Safran), and so did the pandemic day-and-date releases Wonder Woman 1984 ($167 million) and Gunn’s own The Suicide Squad ($168.7 million) — movies that streamed for free on HBO Max the same day they hit theaters.
Supergirl has no such excuse.
Against a net cost of around $170 million, the projected theatrical loss sits at roughly $244 million, the reason exhibitors dumped the film by the thousand and the reason Gunn and Peter Safran have already been branded the biggest losers of 2026.
Gunn Spends His 60th On The Man of Tomorrow Set
All of that lands on Gunn’s 60th birthday, which the DC Studios co-boss spent shooting Man of Tomorrow.
On Instagram, Gunn posted a photo with the film’s crew — everybody decked out in matching pink custom Johnny Cupcakes shirts — writing, “What a wonderful birthday on set with the best crew in the world.”
The official Superman account is among the 18,000-plus likes, and fans in the comments are already playing Where’s Waldo with the lineup, convinced there’s a Photoshop job hiding somebody in the shot.
Over on X, Gunn saluted his “birthday twin” Amanda Waller, praising the character as the most intimidating person in any room without ever needing superpowers, crediting Viola Davis, and noting Waller’s debut in 1986’s Legends #1 from Len Wein and John Ostrander.
Here’s the awkward part: the Waller series announced for HBO Max all the way back in January 2023 — the one meant to spin out of Peacemaker — remains nowhere to be found. No production date, no release window, nothing.
Davis, meanwhile, isn’t waiting around. Her JuVee Productions signed a first-look deal with Universal Global Television last month, and just yesterday Paramount+ greenlit Ascent, a John Logan thriller series starring Davis as an elite corporate fixer.
Yes, Paramount, the company currently trying to buy Warner Bros. Discovery.
‘It’s Not The End Of The World’
Now the detail worth reading into. On mobile, Gunn attached a song to his birthday post: “It’s Not The End Of The World” by Foxy Shazam, off the band’s 2025 album Box of Magic.
Gunn doesn’t do accidental needle drops. This is the filmmaker who builds entire movies around his playlists and who made Foxy Shazam’s “Oh Lord” the opening dance number of Peacemaker Season 2.
So file this one under speculation, but consider what’s swirling around the guy this week.
The Merger Falling Apart Might Be Gunn’s Best-Case Scenario
The Paramount-WBD deal is frozen until a 12-day antitrust trial that kicks off March 2, 2027, after California AG Rob Bonta and a coalition of state attorneys general sued to block it.
As previously covered, Gunn’s DCU fate could be spelled out in court paperwork long before anyone sees the inside of a courtroom.
And as I reported Thursday morning, the merger agreement already gives Paramount veto power over DC’s long-term future — before the deal has even closed.
Meanwhile, Wall Street is losing faith the deal happens at all.
Per Puck’s William D. Cohan, WBD is trading around $25.78 — nearly 20 percent below the $31.75 takeout price — with the merger arbs signaling real doubt that Larry Ellison closes.
Ellison, the deal’s ultimate guarantor, has watched his net worth drop more than $66 billion this year while Oracle sits on $130 billion of debt and record-high credit-default swaps.
A $7 million-a-day ticking fee starts accruing in October, and after June 4, 2027, either side can walk away with a $7 billion breakup fee changing hands.
Cohan believes David Zaslav already has a Plan B ready: dust off the June 2025 breakup plan and split WBD in two, with Zaslav running Streaming & Studios and Gunnar Wiedenfels taking the cable networks. Streaming & Studios is the half that contains DC Studios.
Connect the dots.
As previously reported, insiders say it’s open season on Gunn under the incoming Ellison regime, with names like Zack Snyder, Ben Affleck, and Christopher McQuarrie already circling DC.
But if the merger collapses, Zaslav — the man who hired Gunn and Safran in the first place — stays in charge of the studio. Gunn and Safran keep their jobs.
It could even hand Gunn the one thing he has been chasing: Batman.
Gunn spent last summer explaining away Superman’s box office by pointing out the movie didn’t have Batman in it, and he has spent this summer insisting the DCU Batman still isn’t cast while The Brave and the Bold sits in limbo.
A surviving Zaslav in need of a win would have every reason to finally let Gunn make his Batman movie.
So when the birthday boy scores his crew photo with “It’s Not The End Of The World,” maybe take him literally.
For James Gunn, the deal blowing up wouldn’t be the end of the world; it might be the best present he gets all year.
As promised, there’s a lot more: WBD’s Q2 earnings put Supergirl front and center, and Zaslav’s response is a story in itself.
