Supergirl's Box Office Collapse Traced to a Secret Bake Off Between James Gunn and Craig Gillespie's Cuts

Supergirl's second weekend at the box office collapsed to about 9.6 million dollars, a 73 percent drop from its opening, and days later a Hollywood Reporter story from Borys Kit laid out why. According to that report, DC Studios held a test-screening "bake-off" pitting a cut from director Craig Gillespie against one favored by James Gunn and Peter Safran, and the studio's cut reportedly won out by around two points. The story broke Friday night, and I found it curious that it landed then rather than on a Monday news cycle, though it also lines up with the film having just made roughly 9 million dollars in its second week.

The numbers around it were already grim. Over the Independence Day weekend, Minions and Monsters opened to about 63.5 million dollars over five days against an expected 80 million, marking the lowest five day and three day opening for a Despicable Me franchise film, well below 2013's Despicable Me 2 (143 million), 2022's Minions: The Rise of Gru (123 million) and 2024's Despicable Me 4 (122.6 million). Toy Story 5 held second place with roughly 30 to 31 million for the weekend, pushing its domestic total near 365 million on its way toward 800 million. Angel Studios' Young Washington beat expectations in third place with about 20 million. Supergirl sat in fourth with that 9.6 million weekend, a decline comparable to Joker Folie a Deux's 81 percent drop and to how The Flash stumbled despite promises it would be among the greatest movies ever made. A report on ComicBookMovie noted the film would cross 48.8 million domestically by that Sunday, calling it one of the biggest superhero box office flops in recent memory, on a picture budgeted at 170 to 180 million that still had not come close to earning that back. A fifth-place film rounded out the top five with about 6 million and a 216 million total.

Hollywood Reporter says DC Studios ran a bake-off between competing Supergirl cuts

Per Hollywood Reporter's sourcing, Gunn and Gillespie had creative differences over the direction of the movie, and the film never found its footing in post-production. Test scores, scored on a 100 point scale, never escaped the 60s according to multiple insiders, with one insider saying the film's top score was 70. Other insiders pushed back on the framing, telling the outlet that what happened was closer to the normal amount of healthy friction between a filmmaker and a studio, and multiple sources said Gunn and Safran respected Gillespie's filmmaking chops, noting he guided Margot Robbie to an Oscar nomination on I, Tonya.

What strikes me is that this confirms a concern I had from the trailers: whose movie is this actually? It looks like Gunn brought in the director behind Lars and the Real Girl and I, Tonya and then still pushed him toward needle drops and choices that were Gunn's own instincts rather than Gillespie's. "I challenge anyone to watch this movie and find a Craig Gillespie movie in this movie. You won't," is how I put it discussing the story. Gillespie also didn't choose his star or his writer. Milly Alcock and Ana Nogueira were already in place when he came aboard, which to me makes this closer to a situation like Gareth Edwards inheriting an already cast and scripted Jurassic World film than a director shaping his own project from scratch.

Reshoots, dueling editors and a fight over music defined the post-production process

Filming wrapped in May, and by that fall the studio and Gillespie reportedly already knew the movie wasn't working. A December test screening came back just okay, and the studio decided to take charge of post-production itself, cutting its own version. It also enlisted writer Jeremy Slater, described in the report as a Gunn favorite who had previously written an unmade feature on the DC team the Authority, to help with post; the extent of his involvement is unclear, though he appears to have helped write scenes for a nine day reshoot. Original screenwriter Nogueira stayed involved throughout. The climactic fight was reconfigured, and music became, in the report's words, a key friction point.

That detail bothers me specifically. Music choice is normally a director's call, and while a producer can flag rights issues, forcing another director to use a particular song is a different thing, especially from someone who knows music as well as Gunn does. The film ultimately ran two editors: Tatiana S. Riegel, Gillespie's longtime collaborator who cut Lars and the Real Girl and I, Tonya, and Fred Raskin, Gunn's longtime editor on the Guardians films and Peacemaker. To me that reads like two directors effectively working on the same film, with one holding more power and ultimately steering the outcome.

Scores were improving before the studio forced a head to head comparison

Deep into that winter, test scores had actually improved into the low 70s. Rather than keep refining that cut, the studio chose to force the bake-off, setting Gillespie's version against its own. I have to ask why they stopped tinkering if the tinkering was working. One comparison that came up in our discussion was It Ends With Us, where a Justin Baldoni cut was tested against a Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds cut and the latter won and went on to make real money. But that film's original budget was only 25 million, with a true cost closer to 40 to 50 million, a very different risk profile than a film that cost 170 million or more.

An anonymous franchise filmmaker not involved in Supergirl told Hollywood Reporter that bake-offs like this happen more than people think, but still added, "it's not normal," and that if a studio puts money into the test process, it means they feel strongly about certain things. The movie was never tested again after that point; for comparison, the cancelled Batgirl and the theatrical bomb Shazam Fury of the Gods both tested in the 60s as well, similar to where most of Supergirl's tests sat before that improvement. From the bake-off forward, one source said, if Gillespie believed something should be in the movie, he had to advocate for it. That framing reminded me of what Gavin Hood has said happened to him on the Wolverine movie, where he described getting bullied during that process, and in my view Gillespie shouldn't take the hit for how this played out.

My view on why the underlying approach missed the mark

Beyond the internal politics, I think the film's own strategy worked against it. Wonder Woman remains the only female led superhero film where more women than men bought tickets, at 52 to 48 percent, because that character already had built-in appeal to women. Supergirl never got that same pull. My 14 year old was aware of the movie and told me flatly she wasn't interested, and my wife didn't even know a Supergirl movie existed or who was in it. If the studio wanted this to work as a female driven story, I think it needed a seasoned female writer and director who fully committed to that identity, the way Barbie did with Greta Gerwig, rather than folding in elements aimed at male audiences. I'd also argue this material, dealing with trauma and darker themes drawn from the source graphic novel, needed an origin film first to introduce the character, the way Batman Begins set up The Dark Knight, rather than launching straight into this tone as a 170 to 180 million dollar summer blockbuster. A smaller film in the 80 million range released in the fall would have made more sense to me.

What Hollywood Reporter's sourcing says comes next for Gunn and DC

Despite the numbers, the studio's stance according to the report is that it remains confident in the broader long term DC strategy, and Gunn and Safran will continue guiding the studio. It's unclear when their contracts are up, though sources believe it's either the end of 2026 or the end of 2027. By then DC Studios will have released Clayface, a modestly budgeted horror film centered on the Batman villain, and Gunn's own Man of Tomorrow, slated for July 9, 2027. Matt Reeves' Batman Part II is also in production for an October 1, 2027 date but remains separate from the DC Universe. Gunn is also continuing his focus on side characters, including a comedic Jimmy Olsen mockumentary series starring Skyler Gisondo that is set to shoot this fall, and a Mister Terrific series starring Edi Gathegi that is in active development with Alan Heinberg writing the pilot.

My own read is that Gunn needs to get off social media, because I think pieces like Owen Gleiberman's review and the Variety follow-ups amounted to the trade press telling him to stop calling out reporters over scoops, and that only invites more of this kind of story. I've said for a while now that I think Gunn is done after Man of Tomorrow, and that if David Ellison ends up running the studio, he brings in someone else to lead DC. There's also a rumor, reported by Jordan Ruimy at World of Reel, that Gunn wants to direct Batman and the Brave and the Bold himself. I wouldn't be surprised if that's true, and honestly, given what just happened with Gillespie, I understand the impulse to direct it yourself rather than hand it to someone else and then take over anyway.