Supergirl, the second movie from the updated DC Studios, had a less-than-stellar opening weekend, and it could result in a major financial loss for its parent company, Warner Bros. A new report from Variety says that the film, which stars Milly Alcock and Jason Momoa, could lose almost $100 million.
The math works like this. According to the trade, the film cost $170 million to make, $120 million to market, and has a break-even point of about $300 million. The film’s $68 million opening weekend globally suggests it’ll end up making about $200 million by the end of its run, hence the $100 million loss estimate. If the film doesn’t make $200 million worldwide, though, the loss could be even greater. And with films like Minions & Monsters, The Odyssey, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day on the way, it’s going to be a difficult climb to get there.
“While Supergirl didn’t meet our box office expectations, it’s just one component of a broader, long-term strategy at DC Studios that we remain confident in,” co-chairman and co-chief executive of DC Studios, Peter Safran, told The New York Times.
That long-term strategy continues later this summer with Lanterns on HBO Max, Clayface in theaters in October, and then next summer with James Gunn’s upcoming Superman sequel, Man of Tomorrow, which is now filming. That film is expected to bring back not just all the characters from Superman, but Supergirl and Krypto from this one, too. It’ll also see Superman and Lex Luthor team up to take on a big, bad, galactic villain in Brainiac, and is heavily rumored to feature a role for Wonder Woman. Whether or not that last part is true, it does suggest that even though Supergirl is going to be a costly misfire, things are still moving ahead and getting bigger.
You also have to remember that movie studios are built for these kinds of things. Yes, it’s brutal to think you could lose $100 million on a movie, but the studio also grossed over $4 billion from its movies in 2025. Not everything is dependent on Supergirl or even DC. Just so long as the new Evil Dead, Dune, and Practical Magic movies don’t all follow suit. But, either way, the strategy is obviously not for movies that cost more than $200 million to lose money, so you can be sure there will be many, many meetings at Warner Bros. this week.
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