In a sunlit Los Angeles kitchen, a small white dog with one permanently floppy ear gnawed on a cabinet door. Ozu, a rescue adopted by DC Studios co-chief James Gunn and his wife, actress Jennifer Holland, was, by Holland’s account, “a floppy nightmare of a little puppy who just knew nothing about how to be civil.” That unruly ear, which pricked up only when the dog was excited, became the direct inspiration for Krypto, the superpowered canine companion in the new DC Universe. To mark the release of Supergirl, Warner Bros. partnered with Milk-Bone to produce limited-edition dog treats shaped like the comic-book hero’s emblem, with Holland as the campaign’s spokesperson. It was a marketing tie-in rooted in the most domestic of details: a pet’s endearing imperfection, translated into a blockbuster’s emotional anchor.

That anchor, however, could not steady the film’s commercial voyage. Supergirl, directed by Craig Gillespie and starring Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El, opened to $38 million in North America and $68 million globally, well below pre-release tracking that had forecast a domestic debut of $50–55 million. With a production budget of $170 million and a massive promotional spend, the film faces a steep climb to profitability; analysts in North America estimate a break-even point of at least $300 million. The opening weekend placed it behind the second frame of Disney and Pixar’s Toy Story 5, which added $70 million domestically and has already crossed $585 million worldwide, and even behind the low-budget horror film Obsession, which in its seventh week earned $9.8 million, a drop of only 27 percent. In Brazil, Supergirl drew 218,000 admissions and grossed R$5.29 million, while Toy Story 5 led with R$22.6 million. In Mexico, Supergirl’s $3.4 million was a bright spot, but the film’s overall international performance was muted, with the United Kingdom contributing $4.1 million and China just $1 million.

Industry observers in Latin America and Europe note that the superhero genre is no longer the guaranteed draw it was before the pandemic. David A. Gross, president of consultancy FranchiseRe, told reporters that annual box-office revenue for the genre has fallen by roughly $3.5 billion from its 2017–2019 peak. Supergirl’s reception among critics and audiences reflected this cooling: a 56% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a B-minus CinemaScore, a grade that, in the context of superhero films, signals weak word-of-mouth. The film’s star, Alcock, drew attention in the run-up to release for remarks about men and Christians, telling Vanity Fair that “simply existing as a woman in that space is something that people comment on,” and later noting that criticism often came from “Dad of four, Christian” accounts. Some US media commentary subsequently framed the film’s underperformance as a consequence of audience misogyny, while other analysts pointed to structural factors: the decision to follow Superman with a less widely known character, a director inexperienced in large-scale visual effects, and a script that, according to some critics, struggled to translate the acclaimed source comic.

Amid the financial disappointment, DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran told The New York Times that the result did not shake the studio’s long-term strategy. “While Supergirl didn’t meet our box office expectations, it’s just one component of a broader, long-term strategy at DC Studios that we remain confident in,” he said. The film did achieve one notable record: 51 percent of its domestic opening came from IMAX and premium large-format screens, the highest such share for a superhero film. Yet that statistic also underscored the narrowness of its appeal—a core fanbase turning out in premium formats, while the broader family audience flocked to Toy Story 5 and the horror faithful sustained Obsession.

Gillespie made a quiet but telling creative choice: Supergirl contains no post-credits scene. After internal debate, the director decided to preserve the emotional weight of Kara’s final moment, refusing to dilute it with a teaser for the next instalment. When the lights came up in cinemas from São Paulo to Seoul, audiences were left not with a promise of more, but with the image of a young woman and her dog, alone against a vast, indifferent cosmos. It was a gamble on narrative integrity that, for a weekend at least, the marketplace declined to reward.