Supergirl (2026) is the latest comic book movie to hit theaters, and unfortunately, it is another box office bomb for the genre. Supergirl (2026) is tracking to open #2 at the weekend box office, behind Toy Story 5 with a domestic opening weekend of $37.1 million, lower than Morbius, The Marvels, and Joker: Folie A Deux. What happened with Supergirl (2026) why did it BOMB opening weekend? Let us talk about it!
- Reason #1: Too Much Competition: The summer movie season is always a really crowded time for movies. Every single weekend, we get a new tentpole blockbuster hitting theaters that sucks away screens from the other films that came out in the weeks prior. In the case of Supergirl, there was a lot of competition that was more exciting to the general audiences than Supergirl. The big one being, Toy Story 5 which has just become an absolute juggernaut at the box office. It opened fantastic, with the biggest opening of the Toy Story franchise. I said that it is likely that Toy Story 5 will make more in its sophomore weekend than Supergirl, and that was 100% the case. Toy Story 5 is just continuing to print money at the box office. There is more excitement and audience interest for that movie, specifically because it is a multigenerational franchise that adults and kids can enjoy, and Supergirl just does not have that sort of power. I work at a movie theater and was able to pull some data about the ticket sales. The entirety of Saturday, my theater sold about 1,300 tickets. 46% or 600 tickets went to Toy Story 5 with about 15% and 200 tickets going to Supergirl. That is crazy and that just shows how much MORE interest this is in Toy Story 5 compared to Supergirl (2026). Beyond that, our two Gen Z horror films, Obsession and Backrooms are continuing to crush it at the box office. It is not as much of a direct competition anymore since those films have been out for a month. But those movies are still bringing in audiences and almost selling out theaters, which is crazy.
- Reason #2: Superhero Fatigue: This is a reason that you can apply to every superhero movie in recent years that has bombed. Superhero fatigue is a thing, and the genre is not generating the excitement that it did this past decade, especially with the MCU just knocking it out of the park at the box office. We are still having several comic book movies this decade that have been hits, a couple have even made over $1 billion. But a vast majority of the recent superhero movies have either bombed or underperformed, falling victim to superhero fatigue. There are so many superhero movies and tv shows coming out, that people are simply just burned on everything coming out, or they cannot keep up. With so many recent comic book movies feeling generic and like corporate products. We have reached an era where modern day comic book movies must have good trailers to see their movies. People will not just show up because a new superhero movie is coming out. I do not think the marketing for Supergirl (2026) did enough to win people over and get people to the theaters to go and check this movie. Even when comic book movies like Thunderbolts* come out and get great reviews, they still underperform because comic book movies do not sell tickets like they use to.
- Reason #3: Mixed to Negative Reviews: This one goes hand in hand with what I was just talking about. For modern day superheroes movies to make a profit, they must try and convince the audience why they should pay money to see this movie. The marketing did not do that, and it also did not help that the word of mouth for the film was not great. The reactions to the film I think have been a bit much at points. There are several people calling this one of the worst comic book movies of all time. That is ridiculous and false, there’s several other FAR WORSE comic book movies then Supergirl. However, the film still is not great. The movie currently has a 54% with 298 reviews counted, it debuted at 59%. So overall, this film is not getting great word of mouth. The CinemaScore for the movie was a B-, which for a big blockbuster like this, is not a good score. As a point of reference, Superman (2025) got an A-. Overall, this film is not connecting with people the way James Gunn and Warner Brothers were thinking that it will.
- Reason #4: B-Grade “Guardians of the Galaxy”: This is another reason that ties back into what I just talked about. But in the modern era of comic book movies, people are looking for something new and different. Supergirl (2026)’s marketing did not really provide that. Part of the problem is that it has a lot of the same tropes and vibes of other big screen comic book movies, notably Guardians of the Galaxy. With the bright colors, characters that feel like outcasts, and the pop songs. The marketing for this movie feels more like a James Gunn movie then Superman (2025) did last year. The success of Guardians of the Galaxy led Hollywood to do several projects that have a similar tone and vibe, Supergirl (2026) being one of those movies. It feels like a movie that we have seen before, even with the basic concept having several similarities with John Wick. But the film feels like a bunch of different things but does not have a singular thing that it feels like it did to make the film stand out from all the other superhero movies that we have gotten this decade.
- Reason #5: “Woke” Conversations: This is a problem that I think happens with so many comic book movies that star females. Before people even see the movie or even a trailer, there’s people that will go “this is woke,” simply because it stars a woman. How much did this affect the movie’s box office? I do not know. Because I do not think average joes care too much about a movie being watched or not, and that being the deciding factor for them to whether they should see a movie or not. But given the current era of politics and social media, I feel like you must talk about something as somewhat of a factor playing into all of this. Even beyond that, I think the woke conversations are translating to the internet in terms of people’s opinion on the film. There is always this conversation about if you liked the film, it means you are an idiot and do not understand superheroes, but if you hate this movie that means you are a sexist. So, people decide not to see this movie so that they do not have to chime in to the internet and have them be crapped on because they did or did not like the movie.
- Reason #6: Supergirl Isn’t A SUPER Popular Superhero: Despite having “super” in the title and having close connections to Superman, even with Superman appearing in the marketing a fair bit, Supergirl herself is not a popular enough character to sell tickets based on her name. Supergirl is not this unknown character, but she is not the A-list in the way that Superman and Batman are. The only other Supergirl was in 1984 with Helen Slater, which is regarded as one of the worst comic book movies of all time. The only other Supergirl we have gotten in film form, was in The Flash which was another box office bomb, and you do not remember that movie because of Supergirl. Of course, we had the CW tv show that ran for multiple seasons. But it was never this beloved show that was this super big hit or anything (no pun intended). We have gotten several live action adaptations of Supergirl over the years, but none of them have really pushed the character into the A-list or being this super mainstream character.
- Reason #7: Women Didn’t Showup: This is a problem that I think hurt this film’s box office and hurt The Marvels. The reason for that is both Marvel and DC have been trying to make movies that appeal to women more, which I am in full support of, and I like that they are doing that. The problem is, they are not making good movies that are worthy of getting females, who might not normally be into these types of movies to see them. They are still being marketed and designed for the preexisting fans, not trying to bring new fans into the mix. You look at the demographics for Supergirl (2026)’s opening weekend, and 59% of the audience was male with 65% being over 25 years old. The target audience should be young girls excited to see a new female led superhero movie, and the potential target audience for the film simply did not show up. That is disappointing and a big reason this movie bombed opening weekend and will not have great legs this coming week, especially with Minions & Monsters coming out.
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