I was going to say, that the first thing you need to do, is piss off your target audience, but the real problem is that Hollywood truly does not understand who the audience for superhero movies really are.
Case in point: Milly Alcock. We get the following from Cosmic Book News. Supergirl Box Office Tracking Now Eyes A $39M Low.
When the early projections for the Supergirl opening weekend box office were published, the high end projections were in the neighborhood of $55+ million in the USA and Canada. (Not sure why the projections include Canada, but don't include Mexico.) And then the studio set up some interviews between Milly Alcock and the LGBT media, and she insulted Christian dads, said that Supergirl is going to be some kind of gay or bisexual icon. Witness the result.
That’s notable for one big reason: it’s below the $45 million floor of the $45M–$55M range that recent tracking had settled on, and it’s a long way from where this started.
And that $39 million number is coming from Box Office Theory, one of the best sources for these projections available.
Even before this last round of recalculating the projections, Box Office Theory had settled on $51 million domestically, which is below The Flash, which had a $55 million domestic opening in 2024, and went on to lose $200 million on production budget (not including marketing) of between $200 and 220 million.
The other film that is being compared to Supergirl is The Marvels from Disney Marvel. That movie, from 2023, had an opening weekend of $46.1 million. Loses were calculated to be in the range of $237 million.
When this movie comes out this weekend, there will be much talk of superhero fatigue. But don't believe it. Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which comes out July 31st, is already setting sales records.
Tickets for Tom Holland’s fourth Spidey solo film went on sale Wednesday (along with a new trailer) and sold more tickets in the United States in a single day than any film has in the past five years. The film that it could not beat? Spider-Man: No Way Home, the last Tom Holland Spider-Man movie, five years ago.
This is Disarpu's video Supergirl COPE Goes Nuclear As Box Office Dies.
Disparu makes some good points. The Supergirl comics were mostly purchased by men. Men are the primary audience for all superhero movies. Even Madam Web was primarily watched by men in the cinema, despite all of the marketing being aimed at women. The marketing for Supergirl seems to trying to paint this as a movie for women. That is the mistake that Disney made with The Marvels, or one of the mistakes, anyway.
The video is about 14 minutes long.
This is Nerdrotic's video Supergirl is COOKED - They Never Learn
UPDATE: Bill Hoyte at X sums of the general feeling about this movie.
Let me see if I got this right:
— Byl Holte (@SirBylHolte) June 22, 2026
"Supergirl" is YET ANOTHER girlboss propaganda movie about a lesser-known FEMALE "hero."
She displays jealousy and contempt for her far more famous male cousin by calling him “naive” and “a bitch.”
She'll undoubtedly be portrayed as stronger and… pic.twitter.com/mJtTUyOywo
By extreme coincidence, I had the trailer for the new Spiderman offered to me last night on YouTube and watched it. I had seen some scenes that are in the trailer already, but it still left me with a "probably gonna go see this one" impression.
ReplyDeleteNow, I've seen all of Tom Holland's Spiderman movies, and probably every Spiderman flick since Tobey Maguire's first. Holland comes across well.
A question is related to your first paragraph. " ...the real problem is that Hollywood truly does not understand who the audience for superhero movies really are." Who is the audience? Those of us old boomers who saw superheros on TV shows from Superman and Batman in the '60s? I think I saw that somewhere.
That is the issue the Star Wars, and Star Trek have. They have produced nothing (or very little) that is good, for long enough that they have lost an entire generation, which means all generations. A lot of the Star Wars prequels fans were introduced to the franchise by fans of the original trilogy. Mostly fathers and uncles taking the next generation. Because the fan base is mostly male. Not all, of course, but the fantasy, sci-fi, superhero genre skews heavily male.
DeleteStar Trek has achieved apathy. They have produced so much drek for so long, no one cares. Star Wars is probably there as well. Marvel is working to get there, and I think DC is there after The Flash, Blue Beetle, Black Adam, etc.
I pretty much grew up reading DC comics; Batman and Superman (as I mentioned), then Green Lantern and the Justice League, but don't remember reading Spiderman or any Marvel comics. I remember watching the Batman movie with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson and the Superman with Christopher Reeves way back in the '80s (I think). I didn't think much of any of the later movies and I'm thinking the Marvel universe hooked me with Tobey Maguire's Spiderman, next with RDJ as Iron Man, and then the growing MCU won out. This Supergirl movie was probably never going to be on my "go see" list.
DeleteI don't think Supergirl was ever going to be on anyone's list to see. DC seems mostly incapable of movies that are not about Batman or Superman, and even some of those are suspect
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