While there is a lot of excitement about the DCU thanks to the current smash hit television series Lanterns, the upcoming movie Man of Tomorrow, and the now-filming series The People v. Gorilla Grodd, set photos and videos from which have people more excited than ever, it hasn’t been the smoothest year for the franchise. Supergirl hit theaters back in June and instead of being a soaring success the way Superman had been the previous year, it landed more with a thud than a heroic pose. The film was a box office bomb and was met with mixed reviews, too.
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But as most entertainment fans know, this is the streaming age and the box office doesn’t always tell the full tale. Sometimes, when a film arrives on streaming the response is far different than its big screen arrival and that has turned out to be the case for Supergirl. The film officially arrived on HBO Max on September 10th and it’s turned out to be a much larger success on the platform than it was in theaters. Supergirl is presently the number on streaming movie on HBO Max, beating the second most-popular film currently streaming, Practical Magic, almost two to one according to FlixPatrol.
Supergirl’s Streaming Success Confirms the Box Office Isn’t the Only Metric
Broadly speaking, Supergirl’s HBO Max streaming success isn’t a surprise. It has been fairly common in recent years to see movies that underperformed at the box office do very well on streaming platforms. Certainly, some of those films are older movies that are simply finding a new audience on streaming, but there are also cases of new movies that do much better streaming than they did on the big screen. But when you also look at the film’s performance with audiences versus its performance with critics, the number there also supports the idea that box office numbers aren’t the only measurement of success. While the film sits at a 53% rotten on Rotten Tomatoes when it comes to how critics saw the movie, audiences were much more complimentary. The film has a 72% audience score over more than 5000 ratings (and even more could hit now that the film is on streaming).
What that divide suggests is that Supergirl’s box office performance may be less about the quality of the film itself and more about consumer choice. Everything is more expensive these days and, for many, the choice of where to spend entertainment dollars is one they take seriously considering the elevated cost of going to theaters. Given that many major movies head to streaming in a relatively short window and this summer already had another major superhero movie on the schedule with Spider-Man: Brand New Day, audiences may have simply made the fiscal decision to wait for Supergirl to land on a platform they already paid for. The movie would thus still have appeal, but just not enough to nudge it to a priority when it comes to spending serious money at the movies.
Outside of Supergirl finding success on streaming, there is even more good news for Kara Zor-El — and DCU fans. The character is confirmed to be returning for next year’s Man of Tomorrow. It’s not clear exactly what the extent or scope of her appearance in the film will be (if we’re being honest, we don’t have a ton of details for that film just yet,) but it certainly shows that she has a continued place in the growing DCU. It means that while it’s unlikely that we’ll get a Supergirl sequel simply because of the box office performance, we will continue to see the character factor into other stories going forward. And, who knows, if Supergirl really does continue to be a streaming success, there could be other movie opportunities for the hero down the road that aren’t necessarily in the shadow of her cousin.
Supergirl is now streaming on HBO Max.
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