Supergirl Bombed at the Box Office. It Didn't Deserve To.

🦸 This review is part of the DCU Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters — follow James Gunn’s new DC Universe from the ground up.

Supergirl (2026) made $126.4 million worldwide against a reported $170-186 million budget, landed a mixed 53% on Rotten Tomatoes, and got quietly written off as the DCU’s first real stumble. None of that matches the two hours I actually spent watching it. This is a genuinely fun, confidently weird space-western with a lead performance that deserves better numbers than it got — and now that it’s on HBO Max instead of a $16 movie ticket, it’s a far easier recommendation than it was in June.

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Supergirl (2026) (4K Ultra HD + Digital) (opens in a new tab)

The full HDR treatment for the scrapyard-planet visuals and the Dolby Atmos score — the format the space chases were built for.

James Gunn and Peter Safran built their DCU launch strategy on tonal variety, and Supergirl is the first real test of that idea after Superman’s sunny reboot. Where Superman (2025) leaned all the way into hope and decency, Supergirl swings hard the other direction: a scrappy, morally messier bounty-chase across the fringes of space, adapted from Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s acclaimed 2021 comic. For a dad who’s watched a decade of superhero films blur into the same three-act formula, that swing is worth something on its own — even when it doesn’t fully land.

That gap between what critics saw and what audiences responded to is the whole story here — and it’s the reason a bad box office weekend and a genuinely good movie night can both be true at once.

Kara Zor-El Is Not a Female Superman, and the Film Knows It

The smartest decision Supergirl makes is refusing to be Superman with a skirt. Kara Zor-El arrived on Earth as a teenager, not a baby — old enough to remember Krypton dying, old enough to be angry about it. Milly Alcock plays her as weary, sharp-tongued, and prone to shortcuts a Boy Scout like her cousin would never take. It’s a genuinely different read on a Kryptonian hero, and Alcock — coming off House of the Dragon — sells every register of it, from bar-fight bravado to the quiet scenes where the weight of outliving her whole planet actually shows.

The plot is simple by design: Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts), a small-time space pirate, poisons Kara’s dog Krypto with a dart that will kill him in days unless she tracks down the antidote Krem carries. Along the way she reluctantly teams up with Ruthye Marye Knoll (Eve Ridley), a young woman hunting Krem for murdering her father, and picks up Lobo (Jason Momoa) — a foul-mouthed, joke-cracking bounty hunter who’s easily the funniest thing James Gunn’s DCU has produced yet. It’s a road-trip revenge story wearing a cape, closer in spirit to a space western than a superhero origin film, and that genre swap is what makes it feel fresh even when the plot mechanics are familiar.

That contrast is the whole pitch for watching both films back to back. Supergirl isn’t trying to out-Superman Superman — it’s staking out the DCU’s rougher, funnier, morally murkier corner, and Alcock has more than enough screen presence to hold that ground.

A Space-Western Swing From a Director Who Likes Messy People

Craig Gillespie is an interesting choice for a comic-book tentpole — his résumé (I, Tonya, Cruella, Pam & Tommy) is built entirely around flawed, self-sabotaging protagonists the audience roots for anyway, and that instinct is all over Kara’s arc here. This isn’t a director interested in a clean-cut hero; he’s interested in someone who says the right thing and then does the wrong one, which is exactly the shape of Kara’s central hypocrisy.

Ana Nogueira’s script leans into the source material’s stranger corners rather than sanding them down. Krem’s junkyard planet, the scavenger-alien production design, and Lobo’s introduction (drunk, on fire, and thrilled about it) all read like a studio genuinely trusting a $170+ million tentpole to be a little weird. That’s a real risk in a franchise landscape terrified of anything that doesn’t test well, and it doesn’t always pay off — the middle act sags once the road-trip structure sets in, and a few of Krem’s Brigands blur together as generic henchmen. But when it works, like Lobo casually solving a problem by making it dramatically worse, it’s more purely fun than anything in Superman (2025).

Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s original comic is worth reading either way — it’s darker and stranger than the film has room to be, and it’s the reason Kara reads so differently from every other DCU hero. Behind the scenes, the score itself tells the same story of a production reaching for something and course-correcting mid-flight: Ramin Djawadi was announced as composer, then replaced by Tom Holkenborg, before Claudia Sarne finally took the job and delivered the finished score. That churn shows up a little in the film’s tonal seams, but Sarne’s work — dirty synth bass under the space chases, full orchestra for Kara’s quieter moments — is genuinely one of the more interesting scores in the DCU so far.

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Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow (Paperback) (opens in a new tab)

Tom King and Bilquis Evely's 2021-22 comic the film is adapted from — darker and stranger than the movie, and the reason Kara reads so differently from Clark.

Watching It at Home — Vision Pro and Otherwise

Supergirl isn’t a film built to sell you new hardware the way Superman’s IMAX flight sequences were, but it holds up well on a headset regardless. HBO Max’s native visionOS app throws a genuinely huge virtual screen in front of you, and watching Kara’s chase across Krem’s scrapyard planet fill your entire field of view — rather than sit in a rectangle on the living room wall — is a real upgrade over a phone or a small TV. It’s not a spatial-video release and there’s no dedicated immersive environment for it the way HBO Max built one for Game of Thrones and Hogwarts, but “big screen in your own private theater” is still the right way to catch a film this visually busy on your own schedule.

For anyone without a headset, a mid-range HDR TV and a soundbar that can handle Sarne’s low-end synth cues is genuinely enough — this isn’t the reference-disc showpiece Superman was, and it doesn’t need to be.

The Dad Watch: A Rougher, More Honest Ending Than Superman Offered

This is where Supergirl earns its PG-13 rating in a way Superman never did. Krypto slowly dying over the course of the film is a real emotional gut-punch for anyone watching with kids, and the ending doesn’t let Kara off easy: after spending the whole film telling Ruthye that revenge only deepens trauma, Kara kills Krem herself. It’s an uncomfortable, deliberately unresolved beat — not a triumphant hero moment, and the film knows it. Critics were split on whether that hypocrisy is a thoughtful character flaw or a script that wanted to have it both ways; I landed on the former, but it’s genuinely worth talking through with an older kid rather than handing them the disc and walking away.

That’s the trade-off with this film versus its predecessor: Superman (2025) was the easy family-movie-night pick. Supergirl is the one you watch with a 12-year-old and then actually discuss afterward. Both have their place on a rotation, and I’d argue the conversation this one starts is worth more than another uncomplicated triumph.

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Supergirl (2026) (Blu-ray + Digital) (opens in a new tab)

The standard-definition-friendly option if a 4K setup isn't in the budget this year — same film, same Krypto.

Want to watch it tonight? Prime Video’s 30-day free trial is a solid backup for family movie night — check the catalogue before you commit, since it changes constantly.

Is Supergirl (2026) worth watching?

Yes, despite the box office numbers and mixed critical reception. Milly Alcock’s Kara Zor-El is a genuine discovery and Jason Momoa’s Lobo is one of the funniest performances in the DCU so far. It’s a 4 out of 5 for us — a pulpy, confident space-western that trades Superman’s warmth for something rougher and, in its best moments, more interesting.

When did Supergirl (2026) start streaming on HBO Max?

Supergirl began streaming exclusively on HBO Max on September 10, 2026, about two and a half months after its June 26, 2026 theatrical release. It also aired on HBO’s linear channel on September 12.

Is Supergirl (2026) suitable for kids?

It’s rated PG-13 for strong violence, action, language, and smoking, and it runs noticeably darker than Superman (2025). Krypto being poisoned and slowly dying drives the whole plot, and Kara’s own arc ends on a morally uncomfortable note that’s worth talking through with older kids rather than handing to a young one solo. We’d put the floor at 12 and up.

Why did Supergirl (2026) flop at the box office?

It grossed $126.4 million worldwide against a reported $170-186 million budget, and landed a mixed 53% on Rotten Tomatoes against a healthier 72% audience score. Critics pointed to a familiar origin-story structure and a tone that swings hard away from Superman’s optimism without fully committing to how dark it wants to be — a tonal risk that didn’t land for everyone, even where the cast clearly did.

Do I need to watch Superman (2025) before Supergirl (2026)?

No. Supergirl is the second film in James Gunn’s DCU and only lightly connects to Superman — David Corenswet appears briefly as Clark Kent bookending the story. It works as a standalone, though watching Superman first gives the closing scene more weight.