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Usually, test scores go up, up, and away. But this March, the scores for Supergirl actually went down when DC Studios held a bakeoff, testing competing cuts from filmmaker Craig Gillespie and from the studio, run by James Gunn and Peter Safran.
It was a moment of extreme disappointment for those involved, as the stakes were high, particularly for DC. Supergirl would be a key test for the Warner Bros. division as its first feature not written and directed by Gunn, following last year’s inaugural outing, Superman.
It needed to work to prove the studio could expand beyond projects directed by Gunn, the A-list filmmaker behind the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, Peacemaker and The Suicide Squad — and the very public face of the brand.
Months later, the Supergirl outcome is now well known. The movie, starring Milly Alcock as the title character and budgeted in the $180 million range, crashed and burned on its opening weekend, grossing just $37.1 million, even lower than the reviled, DC-centric bomb, 2024’s Joker: Folie a Deux, which opened to $37.6 million and was not made by Gunn and Safran.
