Supergirl Stumbled at the Box Office, and Hollywood Is Drawing All the Wrong Lessons

Supergirl was supposed to be a moment. The first solo film for one of DC’s most iconic female heroes, starring Milly Alcock, directed by Craig Gillespie, with a $170 million budget. It had the backing of James Gunn’s DC Universe, a supporting cast including Jason Momoa, and a release date that should have given it room to breathe.

Instead, it opened to $18 million on Friday and is projected to earn around $50 million over its opening weekend. For context, Superman debuted to $125 million last summer and ended its run with $618 million. Toy Story 5, now in its second weekend, is still outperforming it. And already, the hot takes are writing themselves. Female-led superhero films are a risk. Audiences do not want women in tights. Hollywood is out of touch. But that is not what is happening here.

Here is what Deadline reported:

In a further deep-dive on PostTrak, men who showed up at 59% gave Supergirl a very low definite recommend at 45%, while women at 41% were a bit better at 62%.

Note, Supergirl was never expected to be Superman ($125M). Tracking was originally seeing $50M+, which was still way too low for this property.

Screen Engine/ComScore’s updated PostTrak shows more women than men watching Wonder Woman, 53% to 47%. Older women over 25 are still the predominant quad at 35%, followed by men over 25 at 33%.

Women under 25 have grown slightly from 17% yesterday to 19% today, though guys under 25 are still the minority at Wonder Woman, only repping 14%.

In regards to total positive score, women love Wonder Woman just a little bit more than men, 89% to 85%.

The Problem Is Not Female Leads – It Is Emotional Emptiness

The conversation around Supergirl and female audiences keeps circling back to one uncomfortable truth Hollywood does not seem to want to admit: romance sells. More importantly, emotional investment sells. That does not mean every woman wants every female-led film to become a love story. It means romance, longing, family, friendship, grief and unresolved tension give audiences something to hold onto after the credits roll. That is the part studios keep missing.

The audience data makes the issue harder to dismiss. According to Deadline, citing Screen Engine/ComScore PostTrak, men made up 59% of Supergirl’s opening audience and gave it a very low 45% definite recommend score. Women made up only 41% of the audience, but gave the film a stronger 62% definite recommend score. In other words, the women who showed up liked it more than the men did. The problem was not that women rejected Supergirl. The problem was that not enough women were given a strong enough reason to show up in the first place.

That is where emotional hooks matter. Wonder Woman proved this years ago. Deadline reported that updated PostTrak data showed more women than men watched Wonder Woman, 53% to 47%, and women gave it a slightly higher positive score than men, 89% to 85%. That film did not succeed simply because Diana was a woman in armour. It gave audiences heroism, grief, wonder, beauty, romance and sacrifice.

Romantasy Proves Emotional Stakes Still Sell

This is why Hollywood needs to stop treating romance as some embarrassing add-on. Romance is not niche. Circana reported that romance was the leading growth category in U.S. print books in 2022, with nearly 19 million units sold year-to-date by August of that year. Circana BookScan also reported that romance remained a leading growth category in 2025, with romantasy and sports romance seeing triple-digit growth. That is not a small signal. That is an audience shouting what it wants.

And romantasy makes the point even clearer. The Guardian reported that UK science fiction and fantasy sales rose 41.3% between 2023 and 2024, driven largely by romantasy and BookTok. So women are not rejecting fantasy, world-building, action or genre storytelling. They are responding to fantasy when it comes with danger, longing, intimacy and emotional stakes.

Zendaya and Tom Holland make first red carpet appearance together in 4 years at ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ premiere in Spain. pic.twitter.com/fX3JET4Pbw

— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) June 15, 2026

That is why Spider-Man benefits so much from Tom Holland and Zendaya. It is not just that they are famous. It is that audiences are emotionally invested in Peter and MJ. People want to know whether they will find their way back to each other. That question keeps the conversation alive between films.

The same thing happened with Titanic. James Cameron understood that the ship was the event, but Jack and Rose were the reason people returned. The same logic applies to Twilight, The Hunger Games, Outlander, Bridgerton, romantasy and even toxic-love thrillers. People show up when they care about the emotional stakes.

But the point is not always romance. Moana, Frozen, Barbie and Black Panther show that female audiences can support stories without a central love story. Those films still have strong emotional threads. They are about sisterhood, identity, grief, friendship, family, legacy or self-discovery.

That is where Hollywood often gets it wrong. It keeps confusing “strong female character” with emotionally closed-off, masculine-coded, isolated women who do not need love, softness, friendship, family or vulnerability. That is not empowerment. That is just writing female characters as men and calling it progress.

Emotional Connection Is Not A Weakness

Women do not need every heroine to be looking for a man or woman. That is not the argument. The argument is that many women respond to stories where love, desire, longing, tenderness, vulnerability or emotional intimacy matter. And there is nothing demeaning about that.

Male superheroes have been given romantic subplots for decades. Clark Kent and Lois Lane. Tony had Pepper. Steve had Peggy. Thor had Jane. Peter had MJ. Star-Lord had Gamora. Those relationships did not make the men weaker. They made the heroes feel more human. So why does romance suddenly become embarrassing when the lead is a woman?

The bigger lesson is that romance works when it grows out of character. A forced love interest will not save a weak film. Wonder Woman 1984 proved that bringing back Steve Trevor was not enough when the writing around it was messy. But a well-built emotional relationship, romantic or not, can give a film heart.

That is what Supergirl seems to have missed. The original comic did not rely on romance because it had a strong emotional core. It was about grief, compassion, pain, justice and Supergirl’s bond with Ruthye. That relationship gave the story meaning. If the adaptation stripped away that emotional depth, then adding a random love interest would not have fixed it. The problem was not simply “no romance.” The problem was no compelling emotional thread.

Shipping Culture Is Franchise Fuel

This is where shipping culture becomes important. Hollywood thinks romance means two characters getting together and living happily ever after. But fandom does not work that way. Sometimes the hint is enough. A glance, a betrayal, a rescue, a rivalry, an enemies-to-lovers dynamic or a forbidden emotional bond can keep audiences talking for years.

Look at Rey and Kylo Ren in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Whatever people think of those films, Reylo became one of the biggest engagement engines around them. It created fan edits, fanfiction, arguments, theories and an entire afterlife beyond the films themselves. That kind of investment is not meaningless. It is franchise fuel.

And I will die on this hill: if Disney+ had marketed The Acolyte by centering the chemistry between Osha and Qimir, the show might have had a very different fate. The critical male noise around the series was loud, but a stronger push around that charged dynamic could have brought in more women, more shippers and more sustained online conversation. Instead, Disney underplayed one of the few elements that could have turned curiosity into obsession.

The same principle applies to The Rings of Power. Viewers can criticise the writing, the Tolkien changes and the creative choices. But the charged dynamic between Galadriel and Sauron gave many people a reason to keep watching and discussing the show. That is the power of unresolved emotional tension.

Final Thoughts

When I walked out of Supergirl, that was what felt missing. The film had colour, energy and characters who should have worked. But there was no lasting emotional hook. There was nothing I urgently wanted to discuss the next day. It felt consumed and forgotten. That is the danger for modern blockbusters. They can have effects, branding, action and a familiar logo, but if there is no emotional pulse, there is no cultural afterlife.

So yes, romance sells. It especially helps when studios are trying to attract female audiences. But the deeper rule is this: audiences need someone or something to care about. Romance can do that. Family can do that. Friendship can do that. Found family can do that. Grief can do that. A mentor bond can do that. A complicated enemy can do that.

What does not work is sterile, joyless storytelling that treats human connection like an afterthought. Hollywood should stop running away from romance, longing and emotional intimacy. They are not weaknesses. They are strategy.