Okey doke. Before we catch hellfire from some online pundits, let’s be a bit real for a moment. DC Studios’ Supergirl has caught a lot of flak in recent days, summarized by mixed reviews for the second outing in the newly rebooted universe that seems more like an echo of what occurred with the DC Extended Universe when it pulled a Hail Mary with Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice as its second offering, despite not being in any position to challenge Marvel. The Milly Alcock-led feature cracked a dismal $37.1 million domestic debut and $62.6 million globally. Forget a break-even point (of roughly $310 million), it may be lucky to crack $150 million globally by the end. Yes, the high-profile whiff of this DC superhero movie is a genuine statement of the downturn in Marvel/DC affairs at the box office, which was once considered “bulletproof” in the grand scheme of things. Alcock and producer James Gunn can beguile that it’s all the “masculine toxicity/internet trolls/ragebaiting” as much as they want; however, there are loads of issues beyond their ostensible notions of what the internet says versus what the general consensus remains more inclined to believe. And thus, let’s dive in:
#1 – The movie as a whole…sucked.
There is no light or manner that can be stated that will ameliorate the film’s presentation. In a nutshell, it’s a film that attempts to convince one of its “punk rock” status with the interplanetary drunk hero in a Blondie T-shirt, soaring from one arid dystopia to the next, seeking out junk-heap bars on unknown planets and fighting whoever. Introduce a monotonous villain who kills a young girl’s family. The young girl has collided with the hero. The hero’s dog gets poisoned by the villain, so now it’s time to race for both to find his silver pellet face. But then, the film’s hunch for “I need to save my dog within three days” gets tossed aside rapidly in favor of navigating to more dark desert worlds and colliding with more alien creatures left and right to find the guy.
So much of the runtime is caliginous and brooding that it feels derivative of David Fincher films or of Star Wars/Mad Max. Alcock’s portrayal of an apathetic, feisty, one-note character doesn’t do the film much justice. Claiming Superman sees hope while her take on Supergirl sees the truth is ironic, considering she doesn’t see how poorly laid out the film is. Eve Ridley’s take on Ruthye is a bland Inigo Montoya take, and the villain Krem is as forgettable as it gets. The action is fine, albeit clunky at times, in a CGI environment. And if you have a moment to ruminate, the film’s sole objective is to get the antidote and kill Krem to save a dog; did we genuinely miss anything else?
The backstory is rather lackadaisical, and the acting doesn’t serve the story well. Even the side issues of women trafficking get defenestrated by the time the film reaches the climax. It’s another fabled tale of sodden spectacle and snark. And this leads up into the next issue…
#2 – You can succeed with the women in charge, just not with abysmal products.
Ah, the central point that even the lead actor is attempting to bellow over. Yes, more progressive blockbusters, including those centered on the underrepresented, have neither produced a better world nor even a healthier entertainment ecosystem in recent years. Why? Because Hollywood seemed to have undercut the lessons from The Force Awakens or Crazy Rich Asians amid the streaming wars’ implosion, driven by the fallout of COVID and Disney’s acquisition of Fox in 2019.
However, the hordes of online trolls and misogynists seem to only pan for a minute amount of attention (take notes for Morbius‘s abrupt return to theaters because fans online demanded it and to bomb once more). Because when you have the likes of a Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, Barbie, The Force Awakens, or Crazy Rich Asians pull in excellent to god-tier numbers, it has less to do with the leads and more to do with a substantive and caring product that audiences will generally enjoy. Quality > online trolls and macro-sized corporate consolidation.
But, folks won’t turn up for narrative misfires a la Wonder Woman 1984, The New Mutants, The Marvels, Madame Web, and even Red Sonja. Would it have been better for these films to have been released two decades ago rather than now? Absolutely, but well-received product quality rears its head back in times of major superhero fatigue. You can get your Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel to shoot adrenaline and inspire the women and their daughters, but not so much for a Black Widow or, in this case, a Supergirl.
#3 – What exactly warranted a Supergirl so soon after a new Superman, despite another reboot for DC?
Ah, the million-dollar question.
Well, if you ponder over it, Supergirl wasn’t going to move heads, especially when she stumbled drunk into the Fortress of Solitude looking for her dog Krypto in a blink-and-you ’ll-miss-it cameo at the end of Superman. Erm, that’s not exactly on the same realm as Gal Gadot’s intriguing presence in Batman v. Superman, the fun involvement of Tom Holland’s Peter Parker in Captain America: Civil War, or the late Chadwick Boseman’s nobility in Civil War as T’Challa/Black Panther. Hell, even the voluptuous presence of Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow in Iron Man 2 made her a favorite/draw for years (even if said solo film was d**n too late) in the future Captain America/Avengers pictures.
A sitcom-esque drop-in that was met with confusion and some quirkiness doesn’t warrant a spinoff film this prematurely. You cannot sell a Sinister Six from the decaying strings of Morbius, nor can you sell a Justice League from the collapsed efforts of Suicide Squad. DC got too caught up in Superman‘s success to say, “welp, we can do anything else we want now as the alien with underpants will sell our next wave of new titles!”
Yeah, no. Marvel didn’t jump the gun to give James Rhodes a spinoff tale after the success of Robert Downey Jr’s work in Iron Man. Nor did it toss Tom Hiddleston’s Loki into a separate project after his revered presence in Thor/before The Avengers. And it took three Spider-Men before a Venom spinoff trilogy came to fruition. DC made an immense mistake, believing audiences would trudge back for another round of your favorite aliens from Krypton.
#4 – Enough is enough, says the kids; we didn’t need another freakin’ superhero!
The kids and adults had their fun in the first round last year with David Corensweet’s perfect casting of the red and blue hero. Round two with a detached youngster gal? Nah, we’re moving on to the other fun stuff.
Folks received an abundance of new Marvel/DC faces after The Avengers stormed theaters in 2012 with a buffo $1.5 billion+ gross. Black Panther, Spider-Man (third version), Deadpool, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange, Wonder Woman, Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, and more. But it’s difficult to drum up interest for an Eternals, Black Adam, Flash, another version of the Fantastic Four, another version of Superman, and now a Supergirl. Scratch that, a second version of Supergirl (if we are still considering Sasha Calle’s performance from The Flash before DC rebooted and hired Milly Alcock).
It’s not difficult to comprehend why today’s generation doesn’t look at a movie like Supergirl with the same “at long last, finally” excitement, where it may have done so a decade ago. The film’s grimdark aesthetics, on par with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, didn’t jell well with the cornerstone demographic. The storytelling, venturing into punk rock, didn’t appeal to the youngsters. Even an abnormally light amount of levity, which most superhero films engage with (unless you’re Snyder), also put a damper on the fun. No amount of today’s audiences to show up for yesterday’s would-be heroics shall do.
#5 – Everyone and Hollywood: it’s not 2016-2018 anymore for superheroes to rule the world.
As we discussed recently in the box office weekend report, we are well past the time when a “halfway decent” Marvel/DC superhero movie was an automatic A-level theatrical must-see event. In the previous decade, both companies could take risks on the likes of an Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, Suicide Squad, Black Panther, Venom, or Aquaman while still making profits (despite how good or poorly received the products were). 2016-2018 was the ultimate sensation for superheroes, kicking it up to 11 and winning big at the box office (see the likes of Black Panther, Aquaman, Deadpool, Wonder Woman, Avengers: Infinity War, Thor: Ragnarok, Doctor Strange, and more). Nowadays, watching superhero films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC Universe (whichever may be) feels like a barrier to overcome. The blood in the water started during the COVID-uncertain follow-up period in 2021 with Eternals, was amplified by Black Adam (which ushered in another reboot shortly thereafter), and continued with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, The Flash, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. General audiences were assiduous once before in dealing with the “mediocre” that fatigue had set in for them to say, “Well, we’ve dealt with much better and seen much better, so we’re staying home.” After COVID, the uptick in dual releases, streaming-war bids, and PVOD’s push to become the “new cinema experience” led to an aberration from the “superheroes come to save the day!” sensation.
Genuinely, the only films that seem to sell nowadays since COVID are IP-reliable hits/reboots on favorite characters à la Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Deadpool & Wolverine, Spider-Man: No Way Home, The Batman, Superman (2025), the incoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and the subsequent Avengers: Doomsday. Yes, yours truly would be remiss to not include the likes of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings as a bona fide original that would’ve succeeded under normal variables, but Marvel seems to have dropped the ball on the future with the character (it took five years for them to appear next onscreen?).
Hollywood incessantly tries to return to the MCU as the basis for launching a blockbuster series/IP, but that ship has sailed by mistaking the specific for the interchangeable generic. Once the world shut down in 2020, amid fears that multiplexes were in the gutter, everything changed about how to start an IP from scratch again, or how to maintain such faith in future projects. Supergirl did not benefit from, or successfully capitalize on, the post-Superman goodwill. It could not pull a Captain Marvel gross-level event prior to the massive anticipation for Avengers: Endgame, or a Guardians of the Galaxy run after the one-two punch of Marvel telling the world “we can conjure up excellent tales” in The Avengers and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It was simply another reboot of the character that no one had asked for, other than shareholders, once Alcock’s cameo shed light at the end of Superman as a “drunk, disorderly young adult rockster.”
How many more times will a seemingly surefire DC/Marvel superhero movie fall on its face, at the expense of a mostly successful distributor? Would it have been a disservice if Kara Zor-El had been introduced properly in Man of Tomorrow instead? Not necessarily. Now, let’s only hope that next year’s respective title and Clayface (releasing October 23) can knock it out of the park. Otherwise, we’re looking at a redux when Justice League soared into theaters in 2017 to state, “this universe broke before it ever got rolling, boys; time to hit the reset button AGAIN.”
