Supergirl has been a major underperformer at the box office, grossing only $37 million domestically in its opening weekend and a worldwide total of around $89 million, on an estimated budget of $170 million. Following its disappointing box-office performance, The Hollywood Reporter published a report detailing the film’s troubled post-production.
The trouble stemmed from a clash between Supergirl’s director, Craig Gillespie, and the two DC Studios Co-CEOs, James Gunn and Peter Safran. One source says that the three had the “normal amount of healthy friction any filmmaker and studio have as part of the process of making a movie better.” Another source, meanwhile, stated pretty succinctly that the three “were not creatively aligned.”
As filming wrapped in May of 2025, the report details how DC Studios stepped in to salvage a film they thought wasn’t working and had test audience reactions that were “just ok”, including bringing in Jeremy Slater, who had written the script for an upcoming DC project, The Authority, to write new material for reshoots. While the report states that Slater’s involvement on Supergirl isn’t entirely clear, it does detail that he wrote scenes for a nine-day shoot of additional photography. The report, however, stresses that credited screenwriter Ana Nogueira remained involved in Supergirl’s post-production.
Following this troubled post-production, DC Studios reportedly began holding a “bakeoff” between two cuts of the film. One was reportedly more in line with Craig Gillespie’s vision, 11 minutes longer, and featured more screen time for the film’s antagonist, Krem of the Yellow Hills. The other cut was reportedly shorter and more in line with DC Studios’ collective vision. The goal was to see which cut tested better with test audiences. The DC Studios cut ended up testing slightly higher than Gillespie’s cut, ultimately leading DC Studios to choose their cut to be the one to be released in theaters.
While this troubled production ultimately led Supergirl to receive a lukewarm critical response (the film currently has a 54% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes) and disappointing box office so far, it isn’t the end for DC Studios. The studio still has the upcoming release of Clayface in October and is hard at work on Man of Tomorrow, the follow-up to 2025’s Superman, releasing in July 2027.
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