Supergirl opens to $13 million globally, below box office expectations

Supergirl opened to $13 million in its first day at the global box office, a soft start for a film that had been expected to land far higher. The movie had already collected $7.8 million in domestic previews, yet pre-release tracking pointed to a domestic opening of about $51 million to $55 million, well short of the scale Warner Bros. and DC Studios had hoped for from a major reset of the franchise.

The film reached U.S. theaters on June 26, 2026, with the international rollout beginning June 24 and North American playdates including IMAX. It is the second release in James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new DC Universe slate, with Craig Gillespie directing Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El / Supergirl. Jason Momoa appears as Lobo, and David Corenswet returns as Superman in the DCU continuity. The official campaign has leaned on the line “Truth, Justice, Whatever,” a sharper and more ironic twist on the brand language that has long surrounded DC’s biggest characters.

The opening lands under even more pressure because the reported production budget sits at about $175 million. That makes the first-day number a blunt early test of whether a rebooted DC slate can carry the commercial weight of its predecessors, especially after last year’s Superman opened to $125 million domestically. For Warner Bros., the gap between those figures is not a minor variance. It is the difference between a launch that signals momentum and one that forces a marketing and release strategy to do more work than planned.

Critical reaction has not offered a clean counterweight. Rotten Tomatoes’ first-review roundup on June 24 described the film as uneven, while also saying Alcock’s performance stood out. That split has become central to the early conversation around the movie, with critics flagging the film’s rough edges even as Alcock draws notice for anchoring the title role. The result is a familiar pattern for superhero releases now: a studio can point to a recognizable brand, an audience can respond unevenly, and the opening-day headlines still have to do the heavy lifting.

The comparison with Universal and Amblin’s Disclosure Day adds to the uneasy reading. That film reportedly made $12 million on its first day two weeks earlier, putting Supergirl’s launch in a range that is not disastrous in isolation, but distinctly underpowered for a flagship comic-book release. As the second entry in the new DCU, Supergirl now has to prove that Warner Bros.’ franchise reset can still turn mixed early signals into durable box-office momentum.