Early tracking suggests the upcoming DC film “Supergirl” is headed for a weak opening at the domestic box office, a projected performance that puts it on par with one of the most notorious superhero flops in recent memory. The financial stakes are high, with the production reportedly costing around $245–250 million when combining budget and marketing, meaning analysts estimate the film needs to gross close to $500 million worldwide just to break even. Projections for the opening weekend currently sit between $47 million and $65 million in the US. The lead actress, Milly Alcock, known for her role as young Rhaenyra in “House of the Dragon,” is at the center of an online controversy that some observers say is undermining the film’s pre-release momentum.
Alcock is the ninth actress to take on the role of Supergirl and the first to headline a full feature around the character. The movie is intended to be the second installment in the rebuilt DC Universe under co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran, following last year’s “Superman. ”
Days before the film’s release, Alcock sat down with Variety and addressed her critics on social media. She described many of them as anonymous accounts, jokingly referencing profiles that read “dad of four, Christian,” and said she finds that phenomenon amusing.
She then added a comment that quickly became headline news: “If you are upsetting the right kind of people, you are doing okay. ” Clips of the interview spread rapidly across platforms like TikTok, with some viewers interpreting her remark as a direct attack on Christian audiences and DC fans. The comment was not an isolated incident. Months earlier, in an interview with Vanity Fair, Alcock had discussed what she called a “weird ownership over women’s bodies” in pop culture and criticized how strangers online feel entitled to comment on her appearance simply because she is a woman in a superhero franchise.
When Variety brought up that earlier remark during the promotional cycle, Alcock doubled down on her position, clarifying that she meant “people, not men,” and claiming that the angry reaction to her original statement only proved her point. She also said she already expects backlash no matter what she says or does going forward. The numbers fueling the negative early buzz are hard to ignore. A $55 million opening weekend projection puts “Supergirl” in the same range as “The Marvels,” the 2023 Marvel sequel widely remembered as one of the biggest box office disasters in superhero history.
That comparison is one no studio wants attached to a major release. Former “Superman” television actor Dean Cain weighed in on the controversy during a podcast appearance on “The Benny Show,” saying that after hearing about the online drama, he had no desire to learn Alcock’s name. His point was blunt: Hollywood is a numbers game, and insulting the very people you are asking to buy a ticket is not a smart strategy. The show’s host, Benny Johnson, went further, calling the film set to flop and pointing to family audiences as a key demographic that had been pushed away.
The film’s marketing has also been scrutinized. The official poster reveal featured the tagline “truth, justice, whatever,” a line many fans read as DC shrugging off its own classic Superman message. While a few words on a poster may seem minor, such details can compound quickly when an audience is already looking for reasons to feel disappointed. Gunn’s own 2025 “Superman” film faced a similar wave of criticism over its messaging, though on a smaller scale.
Observers have drawn comparisons to Disney’s live-action “Snow White” remake, which crashed at the box office last year. That film starred Rachel Zegler, who publicly called the original 1937 story “dated” and took aim at the Prince character during interviews. Her comments were later blamed by a producer’s son for hurting the film’s final box office numbers. “Snow White” made roughly $205 million worldwide against a production budget of $269 million, with reports estimating that Disney lost between $115 million and $170 million once marketing costs were factored in.
Cain explicitly linked the two situations, asking why anyone would want to alienate a large portion of their potential audience before a movie even opens. The controversy is not without nuance. Peter Safran, DC’s co-chief, has publicly backed Alcock throughout the ordeal, and James Gunn has called her his best casting decision on the entire project. Many fans also agree with her broader point, noting that a significant portion of the backlash has focused on her appearance rather than her performance, with online critics calling her not pretty enough or not feminine enough for the role.
Supporters say that type of scrutiny validates precisely what she was describing in her interviews. This story reflects a larger trend affecting Hollywood as a whole. The 2026 Oscars drew only 17. 9 million viewers, a 9% drop from the previous year and the lowest figure since 2022.
A decade earlier, the ceremony regularly attracted over 34 million viewers in a single night, a sign of eroding audience trust across the industry. The pattern is clear: a star clashes with audiences before release, the audience checks out in response, and the film struggles once it opens. Whether “Supergirl” follows that blueprint to its conclusion remains to be seen, but the early signs are not encouraging.
