Entertainment
Supergirl Will Lose Warner Bros. Over $125 Million
By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated
For most DC fans, the critical and commercial failure of Supergirl comes as quite a shock. After all, last year’s Superman was the breakout blockbuster of the summer, earning more at the box office than either of Marvel’s films (The Thunderbolts and The Fantastic Four: First Steps). It was directed by geek king James Gunn, the same man who runs DC Studios. He absolutely loved the script for Supergirl and pushed the movie’s production schedule up. With Gunn’s seal of approval, the spinoff featuring Superman’s cousin seemed destined for greatness. But as the opening weekend projections plummeted and the critical reviews came in, it soon became clear that this movie was a failure.
What we didn’t know was how much of a failure. Now, we have the answer, and it’s actually much worse than you thought. According to Deadline, the movie is currently set to lose Warner Bros. a cool $125 million. That would be bad news for any blockbuster and in any circumstance. However, Supergirl bombing is that much worse because it’s not just losing the studio plenty of cold, hard cash; it’s also shaking confidence in Gunn’s ability to lead the DCU in its fight with Marvel for box office supremacy. Now, a sobering fact emerges: the DCU may implode long before we even see the new Justice League onscreen.
Playing The Blame Game
Right now, some of the film’s biggest fans are trying to make the movie into another culture war flashpoint. The more militant fans are claiming that Supergirl’s critics are misogynists and incels who just weren’t ready to see a strong woman on the big screen. However, it genuinely seems like Supergirl was doomed more by the forces of apathy than misogyny. The low opening weekend (lower than Morbius, yikes!) is an indicator of how few people actually bothered to see the movie. Plus, in a bit of Morbin’ (er, morbid) irony, Supergirl undermines much of its girlpower street cred because of a very prominent storyline about sex trafficking.
But how did Deadline arrive at the conclusion that Supergirl will lose the studio $125 million? They looked at factors such as the production cost (somewhere between $170-$186 million) and the movie’s opening weekend box office ($68 million). They also considered how much the domestic publicity and advertising budget was ($120 million) and how much the movie needed to make in order to break even (about $315 million). Throw in the estimates for declining weekly box office, and you get a bleak conclusion: Supergirl is going to lose somewhere around $125 million, making this a very public, very expensive failure for Warner Bros.
The Canary In The Coal Mine
With this kind of box office loss, it’s unlikely that Supergirl will ever headline another future film in the DCU. However, there may be a downstream effect where this impacts larger projects in the future. For example, Supergirl is supposed to be a major character in Superman: The Man of Tomorrow; if audiences hate that film because of her presence, it could spell bad news for James Gunn. If that Superman sequel is a hit, then it will pave the way for Wonder Woman, The Brave and the Bold, and, eventually, a Justice League film. If it bombs, though, the DCU could die before the JL even team up onscreen.
All DC fans should care about Supergirl’s failure because this movie is effectively the canary in the coal mine for the entire cinematic universe. Considering how many skipped seeing Supergirl, how much worse will it be for future projects featuring even more obscure heroes and villains? DC Studios has already shot a Clayface film, and they are currently working on a Deathstroke and Bane movie and a TV show that pairs Jimmy Olsen up with Gorilla Grodd. These are big creative swings, and they might all connect. But even if they all turn out to be excellent, that won’t matter if hardly anybody is watching them.
It’s worth noting that while critics dragged the DCEU for years, it produced about five commercial flops before Warner Bros. pulled the plug. Therefore, it might not be the end of the world now that James Gunn’s DCU has only produced one flop. However, superhero fatigue is dragging down box office earnings, and Gunn is facing stiff competition from Marvel in the form of Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday. Supergirl losing $125 million right before WB gets new leadership potentially changes the game for Gunn, and not in a good way. He’s not going to get five strikes; in fact, he’ll be lucky to get more than one!
Entertainment
T-Mobile and Umbro are dropping an exclusive soccer jersey just in time for the World Cup finals
Fashion collabs are taking over the world right now; I’ve seen some partnerships that I’d never thought would happen (Naomi Osaka’s Wimbledon dress sold out within hours). But with the World Cup ending on July 19, everyone’s trying to get a piece of that soccer advertising pie, including T-Mobile.
Today, T-Mobile announced that it’s teaming up with Umbro (an iconic sportswear brand) to create limited-edition jerseys exclusively for T-Mobile members. And from the photos, they don’t look half bad (most collabs are kitschy and just short-lived fads). I could definitely see someone wearing one of these jerseys while running errands or going about their day.
Credit: Atiba Jefferson
The drop won’t happen until Tuesday, July 7, and as I mentioned above, you have to be a T-Mobile member to get one. They’ll be available exclusively through the T-Life app for $60 on a first-come, first-served basis. Once they sell out, they’re gone.
Mashable Light Speed
T-Mobile is framing the surprise collab as a way to celebrate a “record-breaking Member Month” (apparently, nearly 14 million members engaged during the first week alone).
Even if you miss out on the jersey, the other perks it’s throwing at qualifying members right now are pretty great. Along with bringing back a free year of DoorDash DashPass, T-Mobile’s basically paying for its members’ streaming subscriptions with free Netflix, Hulu, and MLB.TV. It even added Apple TV+ for $3 per month, plus free texting and high-speed data in more than 215 countries if you happen to be traveling this summer.
Topics
Sports
FIFA World Cup
Entertainment
The Greatest TV Show Just Sold Out, And It May Ruin Everything
By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated
We’re still living in the Golden Age of Television, with new must-see shows popping up all the time. However, there’s one that has yet to be dethroned as arguably the greatest series ever made: Breaking Bad. Courtesy of showrunner Vince Gilligan, Breaking Bad captivated the entire world with its tale of a cancer-ridden science teacher (Walter White) forced to sell meth in order to afford medical care. It soon went beyond this provocative premise with a tale about power, corruption, and redemption. Breaking Bad even became a cross-generational hit, appealing to Zoomers as much as it does to Millennials.
The Breaking Bad franchise continued with a movie focusing on Jesse Pinkman (El Camino) and a spinoff show about Walter’s hilariously shady lawyer (Better Call Saul). All were well-received, and the entire franchise is regarded as the standard of modern storytelling. Unfortunately, everyone’s favorite dramatic franchise just sold out. IMG Licensing and Sony Pictures Television have teamed up in order to develop an entire global licensing program dedicated to the Breaking Bad Universe.
He Is The One Who Snacks
According to The Hollywood Reporter, IMG and Sony are developing a Breaking Bad licensing program as part of a “multi-year collaboration” that “will deliver consumer products, brand partnerships and immersive fan experiences worldwide.” In conjunction with franchise creator Vince Gilligan, they hope to “identify strategic partners across key categories including premium apparel, collectibles, food and beverage, home decor, travel, publishing, and experiential activations.” The goal is simple: to appeal to existing Breaking Bad fans while bringing some new ones into the fold. What makes all of this notable is that this is “the first time Sony has appointed an external licensing agency to develop a global licensing program for the franchise.”
When I first heard this news, my heart sank a little bit. I’ve never had a problem with basic Breaking Bad merchandise; after all, as one of the most popular shows ever made, it was inevitable that the show would get its predictable bevy of t-shirts, action figures, and even blue rock candy made to look like Walter White’s signature brand of meth. However, I absolutely despised the 2023 Super Bowl commercial that brought Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul back together to sell Popcorners. It badly recreated memorable Breaking Bad scenes and ended with Cranston uttering the cringiest line of all: “I am the one who snacks.”
Breaking Bad: The Search For More Money
Maybe I’m just old and cranky, but I hated that commercial because it cheapened the entire Breaking Bad brand, all to sell some freakin’ potato chip alternative that nobody ever has or ever will actually care about. Now, that was the kind of weird stuff that was happening before executives started working with a global licensing program. Things have the potential to get a lot worse, like Star Wars-style Happy Meals, AI-powered parody commercials, reality shows, etc. Trust me: no matter how bad you think it will be, this is ultimately going to get much, much worse.
For example, I’ve got a bad feeling about those aforementioned “immersive experiences.” Are we going to get pop-up stands where you can lie down on a huge stack of fake money for a photo opportunity? Competitions where we see how well you can land an oversized pizza frisbee on top of a house? Maybe there will be an interactive game where you can attempt to save Hank from certain death. Could some of this be fun and memorable? Maybe. But all of it would serve to further dilute the IP, making Breaking Bad more like Star Wars. That is, nothing more than an excuse to sell as much merchandise as humanly possible.
As always, I could be wrong. Maybe we’ll get plenty of tasteful merch and genuinely awesome experiences, especially since Vince Gilligan is involved. But if this licensing program produces mostly crap, it will be the worst of both worlds, keeping Gilligan from meaningfully working on anything new while lowering our general opinion about his integrity as a creator. With that said, though, we can agree on one thing: all will be forgiven if they introduce Los Pollos Hermanos as a global brand selling fried chicken. Be sure to get a side order of blue meth for the most immersive experience of them all!
Entertainment
The Numbers Are In, And Supergirl’s Word Of Mouth Is Really, Really Bad
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Right now, Supergirl’s box office is looking pretty grim. Things seemed bad enough when the movie was projected to earn, domestically, between $45-$55 million in the first weekend, which was less than half of what Superman earned last year ($125 million). However, those projections just kept shrinking as we got closer to the film’s official release. Now, it looks like the film will earn more like $40 million domestically, with Toy Story 5 absolutely trouncing it at the box office. At this point, Supergirl’s only real shot at box office success is if it, like Obsession, gets great word-of-mouth to get more butts in seats in the coming weeks.
Unfortunately, it looks like that’s just not going to happen. According to PostTrak (which surveys moviegoers on how they felt about a film immediately after they leave the theater), only 52 percent of those who saw Supergirl would definitely recommend that others see it. This effectively compounds the bad box office problems: only a few people showed up to see this blockbuster film, and of the ones who did turn out, only about half said they would enthusiastically recommend it. In the short-term, this is bad for Supergirl; in the long run, though, this may spell disaster for the DCU.
Really Bad Word Of Mouth
Considering that it’s a blockbuster summer tentpole and the second film of the DCU, Supergirl’s box office is looking grim. The movie was basically dead on arrival, and everyone is now conducting an autopsy on exactly what went wrong. Much of that is up for debate: many blame writer Ana Nogueira, while others blame DC Studios CEO James Gunn, who hired Nogueira and championed her script as one of the best he has ever seen. Of course, many blame Craig Gillespie, the director who transformed a beloved, buzzworthy comic (Supergirl: The Woman of Tomorrow) into a largely bland and forgettable romp through space.
Whoever deserves the most blame, one thing’s for sure: Supergirl has failed to impress about half of those who saw it. According to PostTrak, men made up 59 percent of the movie’s audience, and only 45 percent would definitely recommend that others see it. Women made up 41 percent of the audience, and 62 percent of them would definitely recommend that others see it. Crunch those numbers, and you are left with only 52 percent of those surveyed saying they would enthusiastically recommend that others watch Supergirl.
It Gets Even Worse
Supergirl getting such poor word of mouth helps to partially explain why the movie’s opening weekend projections just keep lowering. In fact, some estimate that it may earn closer to $35 million domestically in its opening weekend. Believe it or not, though, things get even worse when you compare Supergirl to other tights-and-flights films. For example, it had a CinemaScore rating of B-, which may not sound that bad. But that’s a lower rating than The Flash, which is widely considered the movie that killed the DCEU. It’s a lower rating than The Marvels, which is the first MCU film to actually lose money.
Speaking of money, The Marvels earned $47 million domestically in its opening weekend, which is at least $7 million more than Supergirl will earn. Heck, even Morbius, the internet’s favorite punchline of a movie, earned $39.1 million, making (believe it or not) a profit; Supergirl will be a loss for the studio. To put this even more in perspective, this latest DCU film is doing badly enough at the box office that it may not even earn $200 million worldwide by the time it leaves theaters. Put another way, Spider-Man: Brand New Day may earn more in its opening weekend than Supergirl does in its entire run!
Obviously, all of this spells bad news for Supergirl. But it may spell even worse news for the DCU as a whole. That’s because, among other things, this bad box office and poor word-of-mouth prove that audiences won’t necessarily show up for feature films featuring relatively minor characters. That means we might get a correspondingly terrible box office for Clayface, the movie about a Batman villain that is inexplicably coming out before Batman makes his DCU debut.
Plus, Supergirl writer Ana Nogueira is going to be writing the scripts for both Wonder Woman and Teen Titans. Unlike Supergirl, these characters are absolute fan-favorites, and in the hands of the right writer, they could be runaway successes for the DCU. But if the scripts for those films end up being as mediocre as Supergirl’s, they may similarly implode. Should those films flop, they may cause some serious collateral damage. Namely, they may destroy this cinematic universe as surely as The Flash destroyed the DCU, leaving Marvel with no real rival as the MCU reboots its entire universe with Avengers: Secret Wars.
Outgoing Uruguay coach Marcelo Bielsa has his say — for 100 minutes
Cade Cavalli fans career-best 13 as Nationals shut down Red Sox
