Spider-Man: Brand New Day does not open until July 31. It is already tracking for a $250 million domestic opening weekend, potentially the biggest since No Way Home pulled $309 million in 2021. It posted the best first-day US presales of any film in five years the morning after its second trailer dropped. The Global Box Office account on X called it “Hollywood’s biggest debut since No Way Home.”
Supergirl opened today after fan screenings. The domestic opening range sits at $34-50 million, with BoxOfficeTheory’s floor at $34 million and Deadline’s studio tracking at “upper $40Ms.” The film will almost certainly lose its own opening weekend to Toy Story 5’s second frame. The RT score is 56%.
Both films are superhero movies. Both carry PG-13 ratings. Both have production budgets above $150 million. The gap between $250 million and $40 million is not a genre problem or a budget problem or a distribution problem. It is an audience problem, and the audience’s reasons are documented.
The Roger Ebert.com review of Supergirl called the film’s politics “101-level feminism... nearly a decade after Wonder Woman sparked a frustrating discourse in culture, as if one’s love and support of a female superhero would measure their commitment index to feminism.” The reviewer looked around a press screening that felt “nearly 85% male” and noted the film’s opening scene — in which a young girl asks why Superman gets to be a “man” when Supergirl isn’t called a “Superwoman” — as a representative example of the approach.
This is a superhero film that opens with a scene designed to make male viewers feel accused. The reviewer found it off-putting. The box office tracking is finding the same thing.
The lead actress spent three months accelerating the problem. March: audiences have “weird ownership of women’s bodies.” April: “Dad of four, Christian” critics are “hilarious” to her and she is fine if they are upset. June: Kara is a queer icon who exists “outside the binary of what we think a woman should be.” Seven days before opening: “She’ll probably go both ways.” BoxOfficeTheory’s pre-release analysis specifically noted Supergirl’s core audience is “primarily older millennial and Gen X male comic book fans,” the audience Alcock spent months insulting in press.
Brand New Day’s promotional campaign has produced none of this. Tom Holland appeared in Amsterdam with Zendaya for a global fan event. The trailer dropped. Pre-sales broke records. Nobody gave a press interview calling their core audience hilarious.
The pattern repeats across the last decade with enough consistency to no longer be describable as coincidence. The Marvels opened to $46 million after its stars spent the press tour lecturing audiences. The Acolyte failed in streaming. The Mandalorian and Grogu opened to $81 million, after Brendan Wayne called critical fans “toxic” the same week.
Films that insult their audience before opening tend not to recover from the insult at the box office. Films that let their trailers do the work tend to open to what the trailers deserve.
Supergirl’s RT score is 56%. BoxOfficeTheory describes the superhero fatigue context: “superhero films are no longer treated like novelties by casual audiences in the way they were a decade ago.” The audience now needs a reason to show up. A $250 million presale tracking on July 31 suggests Spider-Man gave them one. A $40 million opening weekend floor on June 26 suggests Supergirl did not.
Are you going to see either of these films?
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