Supergirl opens in seven days. Box Office Theory now has a $40 million opening weekend in play. That number was $55 million when tracking opened.
The slide and the press tour are running on the same schedule.
Here is the complete Milly Alcock interview record, in order, so readers understand what James Gunn’s DC Universe is walking into on June 26.
March, Vanity Fair: “It definitely made me aware that simply existing as a woman in that space is something that people comment on. We have become very comfortable having this weird ownership of women’s bodies. I can’t really stop them. I can only be myself.”
April, Variety cover story: Asked about online critics, Alcock said: “It’s from a lot of people whose profiles have no photo, who are burner accounts. Or someone’s name and then ‘Dad of four, Christian,’ which is hilarious to me. But I mean, whose opinion do you really care about? If you’re pissing the right kind of people off, you’re doing OK.”
Earlier this week, asked whether Supergirl is a queer icon: “I think I’ve played a few characters that might have a potential queer through line. So honestly, I’m kind of honored. Inside the binary of what we think a woman should be — that’s what makes it so special, so exciting and so new.”
Yesterday, asked whether she prepared for Supergirl’s queer identity in the comics: “It wasn’t, but in honor of Pride Month, as I’m getting all these questions... What makes this film so beautiful is it isn’t centered around a man and not love at all.” She then added: “She’ll probably go both ways.”
Supergirl is not canonically bisexual in the source material. The film has not been marketed as a bisexual storyline. Alcock volunteered this characterization in a press interview seven days before opening.
The tracking timeline runs alongside all of it. When Deadline first published projections, the film sat in the mid-$50M range. BoxOfficeTheory’s latest model has a $40M opening weekend now described as “bordering” the current floor. NRG tracking, reported by Matt Belloni yesterday, puts it at approximately $50M domestic. World of Reel’s Jordan Ruimy, who has tracked the film’s troubled production more closely than anyone else, updated his post three times yesterday as the numbers dropped. “It keeps getting worse and worse,” he wrote.
The numbers have to be understood against what the film actually cost and what it needs. The budget sits at approximately $170 million by most industry estimates, though James Gunn dismissed a Forbes figure of $200 million as “not even a little bit true.” Using the standard 2.5x breakeven calculation, the film needs roughly $425 million worldwide to turn a profit. Superman — the DCU’s first film, one year ago — opened to $122 million domestic and earned $618 million worldwide. Supergirl is on pace to open to between one-third and one-half of that figure.
There is additional production context that makes the tracking worse. The film went through more than ten test screenings — more than any studio film this decade per Jordan Ruimy. Three different endings were tested. Three composers scored it at different points in post-production. The runtime was trimmed by approximately 25 minutes across the testing process. Each screening introduced changes. The version arriving June 26 is the result of more audience testing than almost any film in recent memory, and it is still tracking toward a potential loss.
The competitive calendar adds another layer. Toy Story 5, which opened last weekend, is projecting a $140M+ Thursday preview and a second-weekend finish that could beat Supergirl’s entire opening. The film may not open at number one in its own debut frame. Minions & Monsters arrives five days later on July 1. Disney’s live-action Moana follows July 10. Supergirl ranked ninth in Fandango’s summer anticipation survey, behind all three of those films.
Grace Randolph warned about this in May. Her words at the time: “If I were a publicist, I’d be like, ‘Stop talking for the love of God.’” She said Alcock’s comments risked turning Supergirl into a “girl power movie rather than a Supergirl movie” before audiences had a chance to decide for themselves.
Nobody stopped talking. This week’s interviews added queer icon status, bisexuality, and “it isn’t centered around a man” as active promotional themes for a film that has been shedding box office projections every two weeks since tracking opened.
The $40 million opening scenario is not yet a certainty. Final tracking consolidates next week. The trades tend to hold optimistic numbers as long as they can, and a quiet late revision toward the floor would confirm what the directional data already suggests. Whether the film itself is good enough to overcome the promotional damage lands with audience word-of-mouth on opening night.
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None of the superheroes are anything other than heterosexual. In many cases, they are specifically normal, since they are trying to blend into normal America.
The more they try to make an lgbt+ movie, the less people want to see it.
I dearly miss the time when Actors and actresses did their job and kept their mouths shut. Now every actor and actress is a communist activist first and foremost and couldn't keep their mouths shut if you paid them to do it.
I wasn't sure about this movie when it first hit the trailers, and each time she opens her mouth, the less I want to see it.
The man-hating modern audience will insure this movie is the best selling of all time by at least double previous records.
They will blame the failure on about a dozen fairness-hating MAGAts, of course.