After Supergirl opened below Warner Bros.’ box office expectations, DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran said the film is only one part of a long-term DCU plan. He pointed to upcoming releases like Clayface on Oct. 23, Man of Tomorrow on July 9, 2027, and The Lanter
Supergirl didn’t even have time to settle into the conversation before the numbers started doing the arguing.
DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran. speaking after the Craig Gillespie-helmed film’s premiere. said the title “didn’t live up to the Warner Bros. banner’s ‘box office expectations’” despite a reported $175M budget. But he didn’t treat the weekend as a verdict on the DCU. “While Supergirl didn’t meet our box office expectations. it’s just one component of a broader. long-term strategy at DC Studios that we remain confident in. ” Safran told The New York Times.
For moviegoers trying to read what comes next, the studio’s answer is a calendar.
James Watkins’ Clayface is set to premiere in theaters on Oct. 23. Then DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn’s Man of Tomorrow is scheduled for July 9, 2027. The Lanterns series is also expected to premiere on HBO in 2026.
Those dates land against a weekend that clearly didn’t hit the mark.
With World Cup coverage and a blistering heatwave in the mix. Supergirl is currently looking at a $68M global opening weekend—$38M domestically. Even in domestic terms, it’s only slightly above Joker: Folie a Deux’s $37.6M domestic opening. The gap from a much larger benchmark is hard to miss: Kara Zor-El’s debut solo outing in the new DCU is far behind Arther Fleck’s $114.8M global opening for the 2024 Todd Phillips-directed sequel.
Yet the film’s early weekend also carries a contrast that Safran can point to—especially where the money showed up.
The Superman (2025) followup, released after the earlier DC hits, saw the highest opening weekend for any superhero movie in Imax history. In that opening, 51% of the gross came from Imax ($7.4M) and PLFs.
The story of Supergirl, then, sits in two competing realities at once: a missed set of expectations on one side, and a continued belief from studio leadership on the other.
Safran’s message is that one underwhelming component doesn’t break a broader plan—and the next releases on the DCU slate are already lined up to test whether that confidence holds when the sequel momentum, the format pulls, and the audience habits finally meet the studio’s schedule.
Supergirl DCU Peter Safran Clayface Man of Tomorrow The Lanterns box office expectations Warner Bros. DC Studios