Supergirl Movie Flops, Raising Doubts About James Gunn's DCU Plan

While Kara Zor-El’s appearance at the end of James Gunn’s Superman was a very pleasant surprise, Warner Bros. Discovery’s plan to fast-track a standalone Supergirl feature always felt a little dubious. It seemed odd that, after Superman, the studio wanted to flesh out its new cinematic universe with films about another Kryptonian and one of Batman’s less notable villains. But Gunn implored fans to have faith in his vision and trust that the DCU would become a world of interconnected stories that put WBD’s last batch of comic book movies to shame.

Though hopes were high for Supergirl, the movie has turned out to be a bit of a dud. Critics have been rather down on the project, and its lackluster box office performance has it on track to lose WBD somewhere between $100–120 million. Films flop all the time, and Supergirl not resonating with audiences probably wouldn’t be a huge deal if we knew that DC Studios had more exciting things coming down the pike. But Supergirl feels like it could be an early sign that Gunn’s grand plan for the DCU is falling apart before it even really gets off the ground.

Loosely based on Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow comic miniseries, the new Supergirl film follows Superman’s cousin Kara (Milly Alcock) as she embarks on an interstellar bender that culminates in her dog being poisoned by crew of sex-trafficking pirates. Unlike Superman (David Corenswet), Supergirl doesn’t really have a problem with killing her enemies — especially when they’re trying to stop her from saving Krypto. But with an orphaned girl (Eve Ridley) tagging along for the adventure, Kara tries to set a good (read: no murdering) example.

Supergirl struggles to make its titular heroine feel distinct from Superman

Though Supergirl comes from director Craig Gillespie and writer Ana Nogueira, everything about this movie — from its focus on animals in distress to its needle drops — makes it feel a lot like some of Gunn’s previous work. Supergirl’s drunken brawls in alien bars and scenes of her schlepping around space in a junky starship look like they could have been ripped from any one of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy features. You can hear Nogueira channeling Gunn’s spiky sense of humor as the movie introduces new faces like unhinged bounty hunter Lobo (a distracting Jason Momoa in comics-accurate garb). Momoa’s presence is a constant reminder of how the DCEU fell apart, but Lobo isn’t really what drags Supergirl down.

As refreshing as it was to see Superman gloss over Clark Kent’s oft-repeated tragic backstory, Supergirl spends much of its runtime rehashing the details of Krypton’s destruction. Flashbacks to Kara’s past are meant to help us understand the grief she’s been living with, and to see why her sense of morality is very different from her cousin’s. But rather than unpacking Kara’s emotions in any meaningful way, the movie makes light of her substance abuse while sending her on a by-the-numbers adventure that’s generally lacking when it comes to intrigue or visual spectacle.

One of Supergirl’s more glaring issues is the way it struggles to find organic ways to make its titular heroine feel distinct from Superman. Aside from her relative brutality and moody outlook, she’s just another indestructible alien who periodically needs to recharge her powers by basking in yellow sunlight. The movie tries to give itself some stakes by constantly putting Kara in situations where she’s left without her abilities. But by the second sequence in which Kara’s getting punched out by a bunch of dudes, you get the sense that DC Studios never really locked in on a plan to make this story pop.

That’s somewhat surprising given the way Gunn has previously insisted that DC Studios would “never put a half-assed script in production” simply because the project had already been announced. Half-assed is the perfect description of Supergirl’s entire vibe, and it being the studio’s second major feature doesn’t exactly bode well for the DCU’s future. Supergirl needed to demonstrate that Gunn had a solid plan to build a new universe on the backs of some of DC’s lower profile characters. Though we’ve already seen some of how that could work in HBO’s Peacemaker series, it was less clear whether the studio could pull it off on the big screen. The entire point of rebooting WBD’s superhero movies was to put DC Studios in a better position to compete with Marvel — which is on the verge of its own major reset. But whereas Marvel has a few reliable aces like the X-Men and a new Spider-Man movie up its sleeve, DC is essentially starting from scratch.

Some of Supergirl’s problems might not be so readily apparent if there had been more time before it and Superman’s theatrical debuts. The two movies coming out so close to one another emphasizes their characters’ general similarities, and makes it seem like DC might be a little too comfortable putting out iterative projects. This calls into question Gunn’s decision to prioritize a series about the Green Lanterns and a Clayface film before introducing new versions of more well-known heroes like Batman and Wonder Woman. WBD still plans to put out a sequel to Matt Reeves’ The Batman that won’t technically be part of the DCU, but the Gotham of it all may get audiences primed to see a new Bane / Deathstroke movie that the studio is reportedly prioritizing in the wake of Supergirl’s underperformance.

All of these B-tier projects and alternate realities give the nascent DCU a whiff of the same messiness that has plagued Sony’s universe of Spider-Man spinoffs since its inception. And when you factor in WBD’s impending merger with Paramount Skydance, it seems very possible that the DCU might not come together the way Gunn originally intended. Though it’s possible that next year’s Man of Tomorrow could steer things in a stronger direction, what feels more likely right now is DC putting out another Super-movie that feels a little too similar to what we’ve seen before. It wouldn’t be the first time that WB found itself on the ropes with a comics-related crisis, but it might be the last chance the studio has to get this stuff right.