3 Movies James Gunn’s DCU Needs To Prioritize After Supergirl’s Box Office Failure To Get Back on Track

Supergirl has become 2026’s biggest box office disaster so far. The film opened to a measly $62.6 million worldwide against a $170 million production budget, numbers that already lagged well behind expectations for a movie meant to build on the DCU’s early momentum. Its second weekend made things worse, as ticket sales collapsed by 74% in the US to add just $9.6 million domestically, leaving the film at roughly $100.5 million worldwide after two weeks in theaters. For comparison’s sake, Superman, which starred David Corenswet as the title character, opened in 2025 to $125 million before finishing its run with $618 million as the year’s highest-grossing comic book movie. However you look at it, Supergirl is a commercial failure, and with critics being particularly harsh on the movie, trust in DC Studios is at its lowest.

Reporting on the film’s production has only compounded the damage, revealing that Supergirl went through a formal bake-off between two competing cuts, one from director Craig Gillespie and another assembled by the studio under Gunn, after test screenings convinced DC Studios that the film wasn’t working. During this turbulent post-production period, writer Jeremy Slater was even brought in for a round of reshoots. That kind of last-minute changes sit uneasily next to the pledge Gunn made when he and Peter Safran founded DC Studios, promising that no film would enter production without a finished script specifically to avoid the note-driven filmmaking that had defined the previous DC era. Supergirl‘s outcome suggests that the promise did not fully hold up, and DC Studios needs to prove it can steer the direction of the universe. That comes with prioritizing certain movies.

3) Swamp Thing

James Mangold has been attached to write and direct Swamp Thing since January 2023, a project described as a standalone gothic horror story built around the origin of Alec Holland. The premise is relevant for DC Studios at the moment because 2026 has repeatedly shown that horror doesn’t need a large budget to generate an outsized return. For instance, Backrooms turned a $10 million budget into more than $330 million worldwide, while Obsession has already soared past $400 million on a budget of only $750 thousand. Even considering that these viral sensations are outliers, horror is safer than classic superhero adventures, as the financial risk is significantly smaller.

DC Studios is already testing the formula with Clayface, a body horror movie made for roughly $40 million. The low budget means that Clayface only needs to get $100 million at the box office to break even, a fraction of Supergirl‘s $350 million target. Sadly, Mangold has still not delivered a finished script for Swamp Thing, and Gunn has acknowledged the delay is largely due to the director’s other commitments. Still, moving Swamp Thing higher on the priority list would let DC Studios use horror to potentially build a safety cushion at the box office, all while carrying a fraction of the budget that just burned the studio on Supergirl.

2) Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman remains the only member of DC’s Trinity without a foothold in Gunn’s DCU, something that must change, fast. When Gunn unveiled the Chapter One slate in January 2023, Superman already had a movie in the works, and Batman had The Brave and the Bold attached. Diana Prince, however, was left off the list entirely. In her place, DC Studios announced Paradise Lost, an HBO Max prequel series set on Themyscira generations before Diana’s birth, pitched internally as a Game of Thrones-style political drama about the Amazons. The decision to build out Wonder Woman’s world before introducing Wonder Woman was controversial, and only became more divisive as the show spent years in development limbo until recently finding its writers.

Since the original announcement, Gunn has promised a Wonder Woman movie, with Supergirl‘s scribe Ana Nogueira tasked with scriptwriting duties. Given the behind-the-scenes drama and the multiple cuts, it’s impossible to tell how much of Nogueira’s original script was changed, and how much she was responsible for the story’s rejection by critics and fans. However, if Nogueira’s Wonder Woman script is not coming along soon, maybe DC Studios should think of alternatives, because the DCU can only prove its worth if all members of the Trinity are formally introduced.

1) The Brave and the Bold

Batman has proven across different eras that his audience shows up regardless of who is directing or which studio strategy is in play. Tim Burton’s Batman grossed $411 million worldwide against a budget that topped out around $48 million, and Batman Returns followed with $267 million on an $80 million budget. Christopher Nolan then reset the character entirely with Batman Begins, which earned $373 million against a $150 million budget, before The Dark Knight crossed $1 billion and The Dark Knight Rises topped $1.1 billion. More recently, Matt Reeves reset the character again, amidst all the chaos of the DCEU, and The Batman still pulled in $772.8 million against a $185 million budget. That’s the kind of reliability the DCU needs after Supergirl‘s collapse.

The DCU’s planned Batman movie, The Brave and the Bold, is currently dragging. Andy Muschietti remains attached to direct, Christina Hodson has been writing the screenplay, and the story is expected to adapt Grant Morrison’s Batman and Son arc, centering on Bruce Wayne’s relationship with his son Damian Wayne as Robin. Still, no cast or release date exists yet, and production is not expected to start until The Batman Part II wraps its own shoot, a sequencing choice that pushes Batman’s DCU debut even further down the line. Superman already proved the DCU’s core characters can deliver at the box office, and Batman’s track record means DC Studios has no excuse to let his mainline introduction be postponed.

Which of these three DCU movies do you think Warner Bros. and DC Studios should prioritize to get the franchise back on track? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!

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