Nobody Cares About SUPERGIRL

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Supergirl, ladies and gentlemen, let's talk about it. Let's talk about the upcoming release, which is, I believe, June 26th. We are now getting early box office tracking data, and unfortunately for this film, it does not look all that promising for the movie. Now, I have decently high hopes that I will have fun at the movie. I had a lot of fun at Superman. It's not a movie that I would rewatch, but I enjoyed it enough. Um I think that comparing it to Man of Steel seems almost uh superfl- it doesn't seem important given the fact that they're such vastly different portrayals of Superman. But, there was a lot of comparison being made to the box office between those films cuz they ended up in similar spheres. I think Superman finished, I'm sorry, I'm uh Superman finished like $618 million, Man of Steel $670, $680 million in 2013 money, which is, of course, a lot more in 2025. It would have been a lot more in 2025 when Superman came out.

[00:00:54]But, when it comes to Supergirl, your biggest comparison would be the television show, and right now the tracking data just doesn't paint the rosiest picture of the way things are looking right now. This article is from The Washington Times, and basically the numbers that they get into are pretty standard. We're looking at a $175 million budget. You add in about $75 million for marketing. That estimate is on the low end given the fact that most of the time when you include marketing budget, it's like 1.5 times its budget, which came out to more than 75 million.

[00:01:27]You could make the argument that for a movie like Supergirl, it's going to go less in the marketing department than, say, a Superman cuz they're just not going to have the faith in it or want to push it the way they would one of their seminal characters like a Batman, Superman, you know, anybody from um the holy, you know, from the trinity.

[00:01:44]They're going to get more of a push.

[00:01:45]Wonder Woman would get more of a push, in my opinion, which means that if you look at the numbers for the break-even point for this film. If you were to use the standard formula, meaning 2.5 times just its budget, you're looking at about $437 million.

[00:02:00]If you look at the whole of the marketing and you added that into there, which is another formula you can use, it's about $625 million.

[00:02:08]A lot of people are adding the are using this $500 number, which is the budget plus the the prospective marketing at two times its box office, you know, because they split the theaters they split half with theaters. But, the issue here is that most people don't use that. They do 2.5 times its budget because so much money goes into those things. If you're looking to clear that, this is the problem. The movie is projecting to open to about $47 million to $65 million. Comparatively, what you're looking at are the Marvels numbers or Black Adam numbers. With The Marvels, it opened to $46 million in 2023, which means it finished at about $206 million only.

[00:02:52]Again, 2023 money. Maybe that movie went into 2024, but then you have Black Adam, which finished on the higher end of that scale, making $67 million. And the problem is it still only finished with $393 million. Oddly enough, the same as what I was talking about on Tuesday. Uh that's where Solo finished roughly in 2018 numbers. So, $393 million. If this movie was if this movie was to hit $400 million, it's not breaking even on on that amount there.

[00:03:24]And then you look at what's going on right now with this upcoming A24 movie, Backrooms, is coming out and it's going to supposedly debut to a studio best for A24, something like that, with $45 million, spending way less than what they would end up spending for a movie like super for a movie like Supergirl.

[00:03:45]And then Clayface is going to have completely different expectations. And then you have movies that are out right now, like Devil Wears Prada 2, Michael, and Obsession. They are not superhero fare, yet all of them are over-performing at the box office. This is what they were saying from The Washington Times. Early tracking projections for Super for Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow have drawn concern from box office analysts about the film's commercial prospects with its domestic debut potentially falling well below last year's DC open DCU opener Superman. According to Box Office Theory projections cited by industry observers, the Warner Brothers release, which is set to open on June 26th, is currently forecasted to debut domestically between 47 and 65 million. The range would put it numerically between The Marvels, which opened to 46 million in 2023 on a reported budget of 220 million dollars, and Black Adam, which opened to 67 million dollars in 2022. My goodness, it I can't believe it's been that long since Black Adam came out. We We actually reviewed that on the channel.

[00:04:44]Supergirl's budget has not been disclosed, but like I said, the insiders are saying 175 million dollars. So, one thing that they do have going for them is 175 is far less than the budgets that they had reported for both Black Adam and The Marvels, which were both over 200 million dollars, which makes it a lot harder to recoup your investment.

[00:05:07]But like I said, if you're tracking on the same path as Black Adam at the high end of the estimate, meaning if you're giving them all of the benefit of the doubt, you're looking to finish in the 400 million dollar mark, which just isn't anywhere near profitable. Uh they go on and say, "As for the second three as the second theatrical release in the DC Studios Chapter 1 slate overseen by writer-director James Gunn and co-chairman Peter Safran." Well, yes, it's a James Gunn movie that's not even directed by James Gunn in a James Gunn world in a James Gunn universe with characters loved by James Gunn.

[00:05:39]Um the film carries added weight. Puck's Scott Mendelson has reported that the industry executives would likely consider a global gross of around $425 million to be {quote} {unquote} good enough.

[00:05:52]>> They're not even striving for greatness anymore.

[00:05:53]>> No, they're they're not.

[00:05:55]>> this is the problem with modern movies regardless if they're in a franchise or a standalone movie, they're not striving for greatness. They're not striving for a movie that is so great that people love. They are striving for good enough and that isn't good enough when it comes to what audiences want to see and the drive they want behind it. So, the fact that they're saying "Eh, good enough."

[00:06:17]>> Yeah.

[00:06:18]>> That already doesn't bode well.

[00:06:19]>> They said um it says they would prefer the film to clear $500 million.

[00:06:24]Profitability calculations for studio tentpoles also account for marketing costs, tax incentives, and downstream revenue. Yeah, so one thing they do have going for it is it's it's very clear that once the movie goes to streaming, it will eventually be leased out to to the likes of Netflix and they'll make more money on the back end. But, that's something that you used to see and we've talked about this endlessly on the channel.

[00:06:47]Matt Damon spoke at length in the past about the idea of how a mid-budget movie made its money back meaning that it wasn't expected to make a ton of money necessarily in the theaters. It made a lot of its money on the back end with DVD sales or pay-per-view which is now considered pay VOD, stuff like that. And then you can talk I suppose a little bit about whether or not Milly Alcock's comments about uh you know, she's been called out for some stuff where they feel like she's pushing back in the fans. We've covered that on this channel.

[00:07:21]Um I do think that some of it was a a little bit overblown or the the quotes were not necessarily taken out of context, but given the way that they were done weren't the worst thing in the world. But, the problem is it doesn't matter. Like, perception is reality and it will end up hurting it if people are making headlines they're like woke backlash to to Supergirl movie.

[00:07:42]And then you have this article here from Cosmic Book News which talks about the Supergirl backlash being real. Fan interest drops in its leading tracking numbers. The latest numbers from Quorum shared via Puck News have Supergirl holding at 53% awareness, but interest has now dropped two points from 48 to 46%. So people are aware that this movie is coming out, they are just not all that interested in seeing it, I guess.

[00:08:06]The Quorum tracks movie awareness and interest through audience surveys giving an early look at which upcoming films would let people would be likely to know and want to see. The awareness number staying flat is not the worst news for DC Studios and Warner Brothers, but the interest drop is where things get interesting, especially with Supergirl now about a month away. And it's now dropping below Mortal Kombat 2 numbers, and if you guys know, Mortal Kombat 2 cost less to make and is not doing the numbers that it wanted that they wanted it to at the box office even if they do end up making it a trilogy. Supergirl previously looked to be in decent shape compared to Mortal Kombat 2. The early tracking had Supergirl at 53% awareness and 48% interest, which put it ahead of Mortal Kombat 2's 48% awareness and in line with its 48 point interest just before release. Now Supergirl's awareness is still at 53, but interest, which is what matters, has slipped two points to 46. Mortal Kombat 2 has massively underperformed at the box office and now it may not even hit $200 million worldwide, which is a complete disaster. It is the framing here. The movie's tracking also softened as releases approached. Look, and then they talk about how the backlash is not helped. The drop followed the recent backlash surrounding Milly Alcock's Alcock's comments about fans. She previously drew heat from comments about fans and trolls and online criticism with some fans taking her remarks as another example of a Hollywood actress attacking the audience before the movie's release, similar to the likes of Brie Larson and Rachel Zegler. I don't think that that is the fairest comparison. I I don't think any of these people we all know Brie Larson is on her much lauded redemption arc, but this is not a Rachel Zegler situation, not in the same context by a by a mile.

[00:09:49]For DC Studios, the public support makes sense and internally Alcock is a star of the movie and Peter Safran has come out in support of her saying that she thinks that she is doing great. They have some time to turn it around. We will have to wait and see, but right now I think more than anything that there is just this sense that the tide has turned when it comes to the movies that are going to kill it at the box office. It's almost like we're looking more for surprise hits than expecting any of these big budget movies to do well. Now, Spider-Man Brand New Day is going to make a ton of money at the box office.

[00:10:24]Avengers Doomsday is going to make a ton of money at the box office, but Supergirl is looking to underperform and right now the more interesting example right this second is the fact that He-Man is coming out in the next we're going to see it next week and there's flat interest for it. It's now projected that Scary Movie 6 is going to outperform it at the box office. I was telling somebody about this last night.

[00:10:49]We were at a mall on Sun- Saturday. We were at a mall on Saturday and at the it was literally called Eternia Collectibles based around He-Man.

[00:11:03]He-Man like He-Man collectibles everywhere, merch everywhere, not a single piece of branded merch or promotion from the upcoming movie. It's literally a get like a collectible store with the name He- with a He-Man name attached to it, Eternia, and they're not even advertising the new movie. That's where it feels like we're at with the big budget tentpoles. Spider-Man is an anomaly. Spider-Man is omnipresent in the culture. He will always make money.

[00:11:34]You can gauge Spider-Man interest by the fact that they still sell endless amounts of Spider-Man pajamas for young young kids and stuff, right? Spider-Man will always be popular. Every other superhero, not necessarily so much and they're still trying to make it work with these names that are known by the nerds but not necessarily part of the general cultural conversation and it might be time that they accept that we are past the superhero boom where any movie could make a billion dollars because you were riding the hype train and get back to working with characters that general audiences know and you might have better luck next time.

[00:12:13]>> Thanks for watching. Listen to full episodes of Pop Culture Crisis on Spotify.

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