We ran a story recently about Supergirl topping HBO Max after a rough summer in theaters, and the comments were the warmest I've seen on a DC post in a while. One of you said the word of mouth had you expecting to hate it, and you came out thinking Milly Alcock has a real future as Kara. In case you missed my review, I felt the same way!
In my review, I stated, "My honest prediction? This one finds its real audience on digital, once the critic noise dies down and folks can finally judge it for themselves without the bandwagon screaming in their ear. I think those reviews scared a lot of you off from the theater, and that's a shame." And based on the streaming CHARTS, it looks like I may have been correct, but the charts don't tell the full story.
Box Office Mojo has Supergirl at $72,366,532 domestic and $54 million overseas for $126,366,532 worldwide, off a $37.1 million opening weekend. The Numbers has identical totals.
The budget was never officially announced, but I think we can get a rough idea based on what's been reported. World of Reel reported $175 million in June, while Wikipedia, sourcing Deadline and Variety, lists $170 to $186 million plus $120 million of marketing, against a break-even Variety put near $315 million. That's a reported loss of between $85 and $125 million. Like most studios, Warner Bros. hasn't confirmed anything regarding the budget.
Craig Gillespie's movie did about a fifth of what Superman did last year ($618.7 million worldwide). Reviews came in at 53% from 377 critics on Rotten Tomatoes, a 50 on Metacritic, and a B− CinemaScore. The audience score sits at 72%.
It landed on digital July 28th, and HBO Max on September 10th, and apparently things flipped.
How big is the streaming audience? I can't tell you, and from what I gathered through my research, nobody can... or at least they WON'T tell you.
Every single "streaming hit" number I could find for this movie is a chart RANKING. None of them include actual viewership figures!
Cosmic Book News has it at #1 in the US off FlixPatrol, and to their credit they flag the limitation themselves, calling FlixPatrol "a chart-ranking system" rather than "a measure of viewership." CBR reported #1 in the US and #2 worldwide without naming who measured it. On PVOD it hit #1 on the Apple TV store in July, slipping to #2 inside four days.
As of this writing, no Nielsen minutes. No Samba TV households. No Luminate.
There hasn't been anything from Warner Bros. Discovery either, and nothing from James Gunn or Peter Safran about how it's done since hitting the app. Nielsen hasn't published the week Supergirl landed in. It halved its reporting lag from four weeks to two earlier this month, so the September 7-13 numbers are due around September 24th, a few days after you read this.
"#1 on HBO Max" is a leaderboard slot from a third-party tracker, on a service you'd already paid for. Whether 400,000 people watched or 14 million did, it would rank #1 that week if nothing bigger dropped!
With that in mind, does a streaming win actually mean anything? The Marvels is the perfect example. It made $206.1 million worldwide on a $374 million gross budget, the worst theatrical run in the MCU. Then Nielsen counted 559 million minutes watched for the week of February 5-11, 2024, the most-streamed film of that week. That's more hard data than anyone has produced so far for Supergirl.
One of Gunn's own films went the opposite direction. The Suicide Squad did $168.7 million on a $185 million budget in 2021. It lost money and then became the most-streamed DCEU film on HBO Max. It spawned Peacemaker, which led to Creature Commandos, and eventually Gunn running the studio.
Blue Beetle sits in between the two: $130.8 million against a reported $104 to $125 million, the lowest-grossing DCEU film so far. It was the most-streamed movie on Max in the US its first week. Nearly three years later we've got Xolo Maridueña confirmed this July as Jaime Reyes in Man of Tomorrow.
A theatrical number measures how many people were persuaded to drive somewhere on a specific day and hand over $15-$20, and that doesn't include treats… By the time I'm finished getting my popcorn (half kettle corn, half regular with butter on EVERYTHING), Milk Duds, and drink, I've easily doubled that... That ticket price measures the trailer, the marketing, the date, and how famous the lead was beforehand.
A streaming number, despite its flaws, catches people picking a title out of everything that's available. It ALSO doesn't include treats, which is a good thing because I've been known to spend almost the same amount for home viewing… DON'T JUDGE ME!
Supergirl opened the June after the Superman movie, starred an actress most people knew from HBO's House of the Dragon, and carried that 53 percent into a crowded summer. That screams to me that it's a marketing problem and a calendar problem.
If the theatrical number measures the campaign and the streaming number measures the film, then streaming tells you more about whether Alcock's Kara is any good.
Both things can be true. Theaters undersold a decent film AND a chart slot with no numbers behind it proves nothing. That argument says, "maybe more people like this than the box office suggested," which I could agree with, but it doesn't offer vindication. The film finished roughly $189 million short of Variety's reported break-even. That's real money, and a leaderboard doesn't refill it!
Because box office numbers are public, whether the studio likes it or not, those are the numbers that are reported. The streaming figures are released at the platform's discretion.
Kara herself is fine. As revealed in May, Alcock is confirmed for Gunn's Man of Tomorrow on July 9th, 2027, and Supergirl executive producer Lars P. Winther told The Hollywood Reporter on June 23rd she'd be spending more time with her cousin on Earth.
I'd love for somebody at Warner Bros. Discovery to share the streaming data. Until then: did you watch Supergirl on HBO Max, and would you have paid for a ticket to it in June if you'd known what you were getting?
You Might Also Like