‘Supergirl’ Braces for $100 Million Loss: What DC Studios Should Learn From Its Box Office Bomb
https://variety.com/2026/film/box-office/supergirl-box-office-bomb-dc-studios-1236797855/
https://variety.com/2026/film/box-office/supergirl-box-office-bomb-dc-studios-1236797855/
65 Comments
you_are_dust@lemmy.world · 101 pts · 50d
Let's take a break from super hero movies for awhile. Pick another genre to run into the ground and we'll come back to these after a few years.
whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 28 pts · 50d
I think next up is westerns again or zombie movies again, it's all on a big carousel
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 41 pts · 50d
Fallout is Western AND Zombies. So, yeah, that tracks.
zaphod@sopuli.xyz · 18 pts · 50d
And it's based on a video game, which seems to be the current trend.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 7 pts · 50d
New and fresh doesn't sell. The most brilliant body horror scifi work I'd seen in years, Scavenger's Reign, didn't even muster a second season.
zaphod@sopuli.xyz · 8 pts · 50d
If you like body horror The Substance was pretty good. Oh and Scavenger's Reign reminded me a little of Fantastic Planet (La Planète sauvage).
neidu3@sh.itjust.works · 18 pts · 50d
I think the zombie theme is too fresh. I feel like it was only yesterday that everyone was talking about Walking Dead, so I guess it's time to remake the old spaghetti westerns. Hell, I'm surprised nobody already has remade The Good, The Bad, The Oxford Comma, and The Ugly.
CapuccinoCoretto@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 50d
I'm up for Firefly again and open to more space westerns.
Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 11 pts · 50d
Well they ARE doing Firefly again, but in animation form
johnny_deadeyes@slrpnk.net · 10 pts · 50d
Here I was holding out for pog form
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 50d
At least pogs are physical media
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 50d
The track record for “reborn as animation” is much more promising.
NottaLottaOcelot@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 49d
I find that recent superhero movies expect you to understand the world context from the kajillion movies and books that came before it. So much time is spent showing something or someone on screen with ominous music that makes it clear that you should already know what this means or who it is. I don’t have 700 hours of superhero world research to do before watching a movie, and I have started to hate this genre because the movies are becoming barely comprehensible on their own.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 50d
Ugh.
I think it’s space movies next, with all the SpaceX buzz.
webkitten@piefed.social · 41 pts · 49d
kbobabob@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 8 pts · 49d
Is the movie any good though?
davetortoise@reddthat.com · 9 pts · 49d
Nobody knows
wewbull@feddit.uk · 5 pts · 48d
From the reviews I've seen, no. "Instantly forgettable" is about the best I've seen. Everybody seems to think the script sucks.
If you haven't got something to say, it's better not to say anything.
OldChicoAle@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 50d
I stopped watching MCU like 10 years ago; DC is whatever too. It's just formulated crap. What happened to art?
jagermo@feddit.org · 11 pts · 50d
I don't know about art, but James Gunn has a knack for entertaining movies.
CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 49d
I do like Gunn's movies but his charm is wearing off too now that we have so many examples it that it too is becoming formulaic.
charokol@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 49d
It still exists
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 50d
DC tends to be stronger on the TV side, like with Peacemaker, Young Justice, or (so I hear) My Adventures with Superman.
I didn’t see the supergirl movie because I knew she couldn’t possibly live up to DCAU supergirl.
…It’s still relative though. There’s a lot of DC TV junk (or junk food).
sportsjorts@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 49d
Young Justice is phenomenal.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 49d
It really is.
No offense to the movies, but I hope people discover YJ after watching the movies and looking for a deeper DC “character fix”
gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 49d
It's still going strong, it's just not made by Disney or Universal
marxismtomorrow@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 50d
Art that takes itself seriously has never been good. Especially movies. Especially artistic movies. Citizen Kane was a terrible film. 12 angry men? Literally just a middle school play about racism. Casablanca? One of the worst ways to spend 2 hours this side of an internment camp.
guyoverthere123@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 23 pts · 50d
It's not a loss. It's a tax writeoff.
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech · 24 pts · 50d
Yeah it was number 2 at the box office. The only reason that's a failure is if they set expectations wrong. Sounds like they wanted it to fail.
rajarizer@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 50d
Having seen it, I thought it was generic and the main plot very villain of the week. Backstory/flashbacks were decent. Based on what they were going for in the trailer... They needed to mix it up, my pitch: An R rating, let her crush some skulls. Let her not be Superman. Think Brightburn. Let her have an arc. Break some spines, accidentally and on purpose. show her having trouble controlling her new found powers on yellow star systems, laser people in half, not having to grow up on earth like Clark slowly learning to control his powers. Let her vent and pick fights in rough cesspools across the galaxy while binge drinking! :::spoiler That makes these Brigand folk, not just villains of the week, they're tougher, they can take a punch, they hurt Krypto::: and they're just what the doctor ordered, theyre cathartic... 😌💀🩸🩹
gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 49d
Yeah no, we don't need to turn every superhero movie into a gritty nolanverse-like
We need space for fun, for whimsy, for brightness
CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 49d
There aren't really any superhero movies like that outside of maybe Joker. I'd probably go watch something like The Boys or Invincible in theaters. Superman/woman/girl not so much. They're like the plain white bread of superheroes
gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 48d
Erm, all the Snyderverse??? Edgy AF and with no substance
neidu3@sh.itjust.works · 16 pts · 50d
That we want MORE superheroes, obviously
Seppo@sopuli.xyz · 12 pts · 50d
Have they tried putting several superheroes into one movie? Maybe do a crossover! LEGO?
neidu3@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 50d
I'm actually OK with the Lego movies. My kids love them, and I find them quite entertaining.
Zahille7@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 50d
Imo it helps that the Lego movies are pretty self-aware. Like they know they're Lego people and their entire existence is made up of Lego bricks that can be rebuilt and rearranged to make crazy cool stuff.
Archer@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 50d
They could just do Lego and Muppet movie versions and they’d print money and people would love it
s@piefed.world · 3 pts · 50d
Across the Spiderverse did all three
gedaliyah@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 50d
Unfortunately the only lesson will be "Woman superhero no make money."
Bonus@piefed.social · 13 pts · 50d
Stop making infeasible movies?
HubertManne@piefed.social · 12 pts · 50d
wasn't like the number two movie last week?
LodeMike@lemmy.today · 11 pts · 50d
Maybe don't spend over $100M on a movie?
FatVegan@leminal.space · 7 pts · 49d
100m is probably just the marketing budget. It's all a huge scam
neuracnu@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 9 pts · 50d
Brace yourselves, here comes The Discourse...
rafoix@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 49d
Lesson - do not adapt a loved story only to make it worse in every way. Why adapt on of the most beautiful colorful comics and make it only brown and gray?
gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 49d
They literally didn't do that?
It's full of life and colour.
Tell me you didn't watch the movie without telling me you didn't watch the movie
thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 48d
Why would I watch a DC movie only to have it reboot 5 years later and re-hash the same story again
AlecSadler@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 49d
I enjoyed it. Sucks they didn't manage the finances better.
mlg@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 48d
DC flopped during Marvel's prime era because thew threw away what made DC media unique and tried to copy paste Marvel's style like an ad.
After MCU hit endgame, there really was no plan forward so Disney did what Disney does best and started chuking money at new movie ideas expecting it to rake in the same amount as before.
DC meanwhile did another reboot and ended up back at square one trying to copy any superhero genre film that succeded which led them nowhere.
This genre is effectively dead for the foreseeable future because neither studio tried to experiment with the formula outside of single hits which doesn't bring in enough money to satisfy the corporate overlords at Disney and WB.
They demand an output of several projects a year which is too high for creating something genuinely new.
Rest of Hollywood probably won't greenlight anything because of oversaturation, and the two comic book giants will continue to pump out slop in an a poor effort to maximize profits like they already did with every other franchise.
MidsizedSedan@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 48d
For me, the main stream super hero genre ended with Logan.
I will still see the occasional Spiderman film as a treat. (Skipping this years Tom Holland one. Waiting for beyond the spiderverse.)
joeljoelle@piefed.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 50d
Please just listen to Christopher Nolan and Stephen Spielberg they know what they're talking about I assure you, they made some pretty decent movies I hear
Apocalypteroid@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 50d
Spielberg's latest is a massive pile of shite
joeljoelle@piefed.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 50d
I didn't see it, I just read several articles where I've heard him speak about the importance of imagination and wonder and I fully agree with all of it and putting the same schlock out year after fucking year is not imagination or wonder
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 50d
I saw Disclosure Day.
I thought it was awful.
I freaking love complex, weird sci fi. I’m usually pretty optimistic about critically mixed movies, or “simple” ones like the He Man movie. He Man was fun!
But DD was so unoriginal and… boring. It was actively unfun, implausible on many levels yet taking itself so seriously. I could feel the writers’ massive egos from my seat; imagination and wonder have nothing to do with it.
I literally could not believe it got generally positive reviews.
joeljoelle@piefed.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 50d
that's unfortunate, can't win em all I guess. The general principle still stands though, I mean he made a bad movie, he still has a good viewpoint on movie making and what makes a good movie
Notyou@sopuli.xyz · 6 pts · 50d
I didn't either but the Pitch Meeting on it was pretty good.
https://youtu.be/AEOTI6959nM?is=ce6VFeVdX_O-ss99
k0e3@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 50d
Seeing pitch meeting plugs in the wild is tight!
Apocalypteroid@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 50d
This sums up my thoughts pretty accurately
sportsjorts@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 49d
Disclosure day sucks.
crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 50d
I thought it was pretty good.
Apocalypteroid@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 50d
Disclosure Day Spoilers Below
Why, ok, why.... right, just one question, why.... I really can't work out... WHY. IF YOU HAVE A FUCKING. LIVE. ALIEN. WHY. DO YOU NEED ALL THE FUCKING VIDEOS?
WHAT WAS THE POINT OF ALL THE RUNNING AROUND? WHY? YOU HAVE A LIVE FUCKING ALIEN!!! JUST PUT THAT ON TELLY?!
Sorry. It was so mind numbingly dumb from start to finish.
crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 50d
::: spoiler more spoilers The reveal wasn't just that aliens existed, it was also meant to show the government's abuse and mistreatment of the aliens.
And you may not necessarily want to livestream your only living specimen from an easily identifiable location while the entirely of the human race is processing the reveal. Religious extremists might not feel the same way about alien life as our sweet old nun did. :::
Apocalypteroid@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 50d
::: spoiler yet more spoilers
Eeeh, I mean, the main mission was definitely proving the existence of alien life.
Would you really ask these people to put their lives on the line just to prove that there was torture too? If they failed and Wardex took back all the footage they could still just roll ET out and get it to testify about the torture.
:::
gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 0 pts · 49d
Nolanverse-like is what was fucking DC already though, trying to force squares into round holes.
Making superman edgy AF cost them millions, cause that's not what he is, he's a bright beacon of hope, he's a boy scout
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 48d
Tronn4@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 50d
Shoulda erased it for tax purposes