MOVIE NEWS – The second theatrical entry in the new DC Universe has collapsed at the box office and is already preparing to seek a second life outside cinemas. Only a month after its release, Supergirl is reportedly heading to digital purchase and rental platforms.
There was every reason to expect Supergirl to become an important release for DC. It was the second movie in the cinematic universe James Gunn and Peter Safran are building, it followed the Superman film that connected with audiences last summer, and it drew from one of the publisher’s strongest recent comic book stories. Milly Alcock was stepping into the role of Kara Zor-El, while the premise of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow appeared to provide the project with an unusually promising foundation. Only a few weeks after the theatrical opening, however, those expectations have given way to a far harsher reality. The movie never developed meaningful momentum at the box office, forcing DC to begin looking for another way to extend its commercial life beyond the big screen.
According to JoBlo, Supergirl will arrive on digital platforms on July 28, only 31 days after opening in theaters on June 26. This would not yet be its HBO Max debut, but its release for purchase and rental through services including Prime Video, Apple TV, and Google Play. By moving quickly while the promotional campaign remains active, Warner Bros. would have an opportunity to recover at least part of its investment through another revenue stream. The studio has not formally confirmed the reported date, although the timing fits its established distribution strategy and is hardly surprising given the film’s discouraging box office performance. An exclusive theatrical window lasting barely a month is exceptionally brief for a blockbuster of this scale, and it also reveals how little confidence remains in its ability to generate significant additional ticket sales.
Free-Falling Revenue Forces a Strategic Retreat
The financial picture leaves almost no room for optimism. The production budget is estimated at roughly $170 million, with close to another $120 million reportedly spent on marketing, yet the film opened to only $38 million in the United States and $68 million worldwide. Its second weekend proved even more damaging, bringing a collapse of nearly 74%, one of the steepest drops suffered by a superhero movie in recent years. Only a few especially notorious cases, including The Marvels and Joker: Folie à Deux, declined more severely. Supergirl has currently earned around $100 million worldwide, while an industry analysis published by Forbes estimates that it would need approximately $300 million simply to break even. Under those circumstances, keeping the movie exclusively in theaters for much longer offered Warner Bros. little practical benefit.
The crowded release calendar provides another strong reason to move the film into homes as quickly as possible. Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey opens on July 17, with Spider-Man: Brand New Day following soon afterward, and both movies are expected to dominate audience attention over the coming weeks. Making Supergirl digitally available before the remaining momentum of its theatrical campaign disappears is therefore the most logical way to extract additional revenue from the title. It is not the only major summer production to retreat toward the home market after disappointing in cinemas, as He-Man and the Masters of the Universe recently followed a similar path. What makes Supergirl more unusual is that its commercial failure has not been accompanied by complete hostility from viewers. Audience reactions have been noticeably warmer than the critical response. This is not a movie that people broadly despised; it is one that too many people simply felt no urgency to watch, and indifference of that kind is extremely difficult for any studio to overcome.
Although the film has frequently been described as a disaster, Supergirl ultimately represents a more frustrating kind of disappointment: a reasonably competent but thoroughly bland production that leaves almost no lasting impression despite drawing from source material with enormous potential. Milly Alcock is unquestionably its greatest strength, delivering a confident, charismatic, and commanding performance as Kara and effectively carrying the film by herself, even though the screenplay never rises to the level of her work. The encouraging news is that Alcock is already set to return as Supergirl in 2027’s Man of Tomorrow. That film will provide another opportunity for both the character and the actor portraying her to receive the story they deserve.
Source: 3DJuegos
