‘Supergirl’s’ Box Office Bomb Reveals a Secret Studio Showdown Behind the Scenes
The DC Universe was supposed to keep soaring after ‘Superman’ became a genuine hit last year, and ‘Supergirl’ was meant to prove the franchise could thrive beyond James Gunn’s own scripts. Milly Alcock stepped into the cape as Kara Zor El, with Craig Gillespie, the filmmaker behind ‘I, Tonya’ and ‘Cruella,’ directing his first entry in the DCU. Expectations were high heading into its late June release.
That optimism has since curdled into scrutiny, and now a new report is peeling back the curtain on what actually happened behind the scenes. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Gunn and Gillespie had creative differences over the direction of the movie, and the film never found its footing in the post production process. It is a claim that has quickly spread across entertainment media, with ComicBook.com among the outlets amplifying the report on social media.
The most striking detail comes from an unnamed insider who put it bluntly. One source described the situation by saying they were not creatively aligned is the polite way of describing things. Other insiders pushed back on that framing, insisting the tension amounted to normal friction rather than a genuine rift, with some even suggesting Gunn, Safran and Gillespie had the normal amount of healthy friction any filmmaker and studio have as part of the process of making a movie better.
The timeline behind the scenes paints a messier picture than fans may have realized. Filming wrapped in May 2025, and by that fall Gunn and Gillespie were already questioning the film’s quality, with a December test screening prompting DC Studios to step in more directly. Writer Jeremy Slater was brought on to help shape reshoots, and an early December test screening reportedly proved the film to be just okay, pushing the studio to begin building its own cut.
Things escalated further as the release date approached. In March, DC Studios tested its own cut against Gillespie’s version in what insiders described as a bakeoff, with test scores actually dropping instead of improving during that process. Gillespie’s cut reportedly ran about eleven minutes longer and gave more screen time to the villain Krem, played by Matthias Schoenaerts, while the studio’s version ultimately edged out ahead by only two points.
Gunn’s version is the one that made it to theaters, and the fallout has been rough. The film opened to roughly thirty eight million dollars domestically, landing behind notorious DC misfires like 2023’s ‘The Flash’ and 2011’s ‘Green Lantern,’ while also earning a soft B minus CinemaScore and a rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes. Even the film’s needle drop choice became a flashpoint, since Gunn reportedly made the final call to swap out Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun for a cover of Jimmy Eat World’s The Middle, a decision that fans have openly mocked online.
Despite the rocky rollout, Alcock’s future as ‘Supergirl’ isn’t in jeopardy, since she is already expected to appear in Gunn’s next DCU chapter. Whether this creative tug of war between Gunn and Gillespie explains why ‘Supergirl’ struggled to connect, or whether the real issues sat elsewhere in the script and marketing, is something fans are already debating loudly online. What do you think actually cost Kara Zor El her big theatrical moment, the editing room battle or something else entirely?
