Marvel boss Kevin Feige once said back in 2017 at a Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 presser that when it came to the studio’s embrace of deeper character comic book stories like Black Panther and Ant-Man, “The biggest risk was not [in] doing them. The biggest risk would have been doing Iron Man 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.”
As such, the revived DC Studios under Guardians of the Galaxy franchise filmmaker James Gunn and Conjuring franchise producer Peter Safran has plans to do exactly that: Not to gavage moviegoers on a diet of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, but rather build secondary DC characters into diamond properties.
So they took a swing on Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s visceral and edgy graphic novel Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, which fans consider a True Grit-type story in the Krypton sub-verse. It has cost Gunn and Safran’s DC dearly; industry sources are estimating a $125 million loss after a $68M worldwide and $37M domestic opening and all first-cycle downstream ancillaries. Warner Bros sources have told us that breakeven for the Craig Gillespie-directed space opera resides in the $315M global range after a reported $170M-$186M net production cost and $120M global P&A (that doesn’t include the DC-record $100M promotional partner campaign).
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Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow was a sophisticated story about Superman’s cousin, Kara Zor-El, coming out of her drunken stupor to avenge the murders of a young girl’s family at the hands of the notorious villain Krem. Clearly the IP was a significant one-up from 1980s Superman producer Alexander Salkind’s spinoff Supergirl, which Warner Bros passed on releasing in 1984 (and TriStar took over) following the tanking of the Richard Pryor-starring Superman III. The earlier Supergirl, headlined by Helen Slater, deep-sixed at the box office with just over $14M domestic per Box Office Mojo.
In the hands of Gillespie — whose specialty is edgy female-empowerment tales like the Oscar-winning I, Tonya and Cruella as well as the Emmy-winning Hulu series Pam & Tommy — how could the new Supergirl go wrong?
Unlike Marvel Studios, which has OD’ed on Disney+ streaming series and rapidly pumped out secondary character pics, Gunn and Safran made a point to be strict about development, and to never go into production on a half-written screenplay. That said, I’m told the Supergirl adaptation by Hightown actress Ana Nogueira was beloved internally, and considered ready to go.
Coming away from testing, DC knew there were hurdles ahead. The response to Supergirl was “good, not great,” and that just doesn’t fly with any superhero movie today. Tracking services told Deadline as summer kicked off that Supergirl, along with Amazon MGM Studios’ bomb Masters of the Universe and Universal/Amblin’s Disclosure Day, were key event films that were extremely lukewarm in their word of mouth. The ho-hum on Supergirl was further exacerbated by the response to the first trailer and the takeaway from CinemaCon (the bus battle scene wasn’t entirely embraced when shown in the room).
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Social media movie analytics firm RelishMix reported before the pic’s opening, “Mixed-negative leaning chatter for Supergirl centers on concerns that the film feels overly James Gunn-coded, with recurring criticism aimed at the humor, characterization, and perceived Guardians-style DNA. Skeptics argue Kara comes across less like Supergirl and more like a cosmic antihero, while others question the trailer’s tone, vocal performance, and reliance on familiar visual beats. Comparisons to Captain Marvel, Guardians of the Galaxy, the 1984 Supergirl, and even recent Superman adaptations are used as measuring sticks rather than compliments. The sharpest critiques suggest audience fatigue with Gunn’s stylistic fingerprints and concern that the character has drifted from her traditional identity. Remarks include ‘This looks like Guardians of the Galaxy as a one woman show’ and ‘More campy, comedic fake-looking CGI.’ Additional examples include, ‘This movie has failure written all over it’ and ‘Looks worse than the one from the 80s.’”
Overalll social media reach on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, X and Instagram for Supergirl was small at 639M, compared to the 953.8M racked up by Superman, Thor: Love & Thunder‘s 963.2M and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania‘s 732M.
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“When things get negative on a superhero property, they go negative quickly in a meteoric way,” one industry analyst told us, citing examples of The Flash (which was dogged by tabloid reports about its star Ezra Miller before opening); The Marvels; as well as Joker: Folie a Deux, a Stephen Sondheim-like musical no fan wanted.
Critics and fanboy media thrashed Supergirl not just for its Guardians of the Galaxy touchstones, but also for aping Mad Max. How dare Supergirl save enslaved women in the galaxy like Mad Max and Furiosa! Following the misfire of Lionsgate’s Ballerina last summer ($140.2M WW) and Furiosa the summer before ($174.3M WW), these female-led action pics and superhero properties come up against immense male toxicity, with some critics picking on Supergirl headliner Milly Alcock‘s physique. Captain Marvel, given that it was a bridge to Avengers: Endgame in March 2019, was able to withstand such nastiness with a $1.1 billion gross; its 2023 successor The Marvels however could not ($206.1M). Also invincible was 2017’s Wonder Woman at $823.7M WW.
Here’s why: There had never been a feature film made about Wonder Woman, a beloved and very popular DC character, which immediately drew women over 25 (32%), with women under 25 not too far behind (23%). Also, there was the fresh allure of Gal Gadot as an Amazon. Critics embraced the big-screen take on Diana of Themyscira at 93% certified fresh while throwing tomatoes in Supergirl‘s face at 54% Rotten.
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Supergirl was an attempt by the new DC to deliver a movie for the under-25 audience, much like Wonder Woman with older females. However, Supergirl is dark stuff: Her parents die at the beginning of the film and her dog is on the brink of death. You wanna know what young women want, look no further than Amazon Prime’s lineup of sudsy series Off Campus and The Summer I Turned Pretty, which Supergirl is not. Supergirl wound up only pulling in a low 15% women under 25. Overall definite recommend on Screen Engine and Rentrak’s Postmark audience exits was 52%, versus Superman at 74%.
But if $37M-$74.3M (the high range being last summer’s Thunderbolts*) is the new opening domestic-weekend range for deeper comic book characters, why not just make these risky deep universe movies cheaper? Again, don’t spend $120M-plus on a production that can’t pull in more than three demos. On the flip side, you can’t underspend on VFX, take a flier on a galaxy-hopping space opera and in the end underserve fans.
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Some like to think that Supergirl being wedged between the success of Toy Story 5 and the upcoming Minions & Monsters amid the noise of the World Cup is a recipe for failure. Nah. Other PG-13 live-action fan properties have been booked in the July 4 corridor and worked before, i.e., last year’s Jurassic World: Rebirth. Plus, we aren’t even in the thick of World Cup semifinals yet.
When it comes to making a superhero movie leap off a building nowadays with a single bound, one studio insider asserts, “Good, not great doesn’t cut it. You can’t get away with it. The fans will have their knives out for you.”
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