The latest release from Warner Bros., ‘Supergirl,’ did not fare well in its box office debut, coming in a distant second to Pixar’s ‘Toy Story 5.’ The animated film ‘Toy Story 5’ secured the top position with $70 million in domestic ticket sales and an additional $89.1 million in international markets, according to Sunday’s studio estimates. The Walt Disney Company has achieved a significant success with this release, amassing $585 million globally in just two weeks, making it a major hit this year.
In contrast, ‘Supergirl’ struggled to make an impact, debuting with $38 million in ticket sales from U.S. and Canadian theaters, and adding another $30 million globally. Directed by Craig Gillespie, this superhero spinoff marks the second major release from James Gunn and Peter Safran, who took charge of DC Studios in late 2022. Their first venture, 2025’s ‘Superman,’ generated $618 million worldwide, showing promise for Gunn and Safran’s leadership. However, ‘Supergirl’ faced challenges, receiving poor reviews with a 56% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a CinemaScore of ‘B-‘ from audiences.
‘Supergirl’s’ disappointing performance places it below previous DC films like ‘The Flash,’ which debuted at $55 million in 2023, and ‘The Green Lantern,’ with $53 million in 2011; it only slightly surpasses ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ with $37.7 million in 2024. David A. Gross from FranchiseRe highlighted the decline in superhero film box office earnings. Since the pandemic, the genre has seen an annual reduction of approximately $3.5 billion compared to the heights of 2017-2019. Despite earlier successes like ‘Wonder Woman’ (2017) with $822 million and ‘Captain Marvel’ (2019) with $1.13 billion, female-led superhero movies have seen a decline.
Gross remarked on the shift in audience interest, stating, “You’ll hear general explanations like ‘the audience lost interest.’ Yes, they did. But no one has been able to explain why it happened so suddenly and so completely. Why female superheroes in particular, after their sensational starts? We don’t understand it either.”
‘Supergirl,’ with a production cost of $170 million, faces this downturn as Warner Bros. Discovery, its parent company, is in talks for acquisition by Paramount Skydance. Paramount’s head, David Ellison, recently met with Gunn and Safran, and the next DC release is planned as ‘Clayface,’ a horror adaptation of a DC character, scheduled for October. Gunn’s ‘Superman’ sequel, ‘Man of Tomorrow,’ is currently in production, expected to be released in July 2027.
In other film news, Paramount Pictures unveiled ‘Jackass: Best and Last,’ which earned a modest $8.4 million from 2,855 North American theaters. This new installment, despite being lower than the previous release’s $23 million debut, generated interest due to its low $10 million budget. On the indie scene, Olivia Wilde’s ‘The Invite’ excelled with one of the best per-screen averages this year, opening with $379,104 across seven screens in New York and Los Angeles. Featuring Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton, the comedy is set for wider release next week.
The low-budget horror film ‘Obsession’ continued to perform strongly, netting $9.8 million in its seventh weekend and accumulating $233.9 million domestically for Focus Features and $108.9 million internationally. Meanwhile, Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi thriller ‘Disclosure Day’ witnessed a decline, earning $8.1 million domestically in its third release weekend, with a global total of $193.7 million.
The weekend’s top films, based on domestic box office performance, include:
- ‘Toy Story 5’: $70 million
- ‘Supergirl’: $38 million
- ‘Obsession’: $9.8 million
- ‘Jackass: Best and Last’: $8.4 million
- ‘Disclosure Day’: $8.1 million
- ‘Backrooms’: $4.3 million
- ‘Scary Movie’: $3 million
- ‘Masters of the Universe’: $2.2 million
- ‘Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War – The Calamity’: $2 million
- ‘Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu’: $1.6 million