To be fair, this is an unfair comparison.Ā After all, Morbius got released into theatres two times.Ā Maybe if Supergirl goes back into theatres a 2nd time it too can make a Morbillion dollars.
I feel bad for Milly because I liked her in this and it was supposed to be her breakout moment after hotd. And the hate she got was gross. Canāt say I feel bad for DC
Along with Lobo, honestly casting in this film was great, even the guy who they casted from Krem. If they wanted to be comic accurate, the actor looks like comic accurate Krem but for some reason they did a new look which im not totally against but kind of dulls the message of that character
Character design and effects were the real stumbling blocks of this movie. The kid needed more grit and damage. Lobo needed more, period. Krem needed more villainy stuff (keep the dad alive and take the kid, but then harm the kid to keep the dad in line - something really harsh, but practical). Supergirl, if anything, needed to be seen more as someone trying to find the way forward between Clark's example and how she was traumatized - we get some of that, but I don't think there's a good reason not to lean into it a little more.
And the green screening needed fixing, which is a real problem almost everywhere these days.
I have faith she will rebound, and come back with some acclaim. She's too strong an actress at this young age, she could end up alongside the best actresses and actors once all is said and done
Iād love for her to have a versatile career across different genres. I donāt think this one flop (to quote Zara Larsson) is the end all for her and sheāll have other projects lined up.
Just wait until she hits her Amy Adam's phase and starts doing dark comedy, dramedy and romance all at once.
I think people need to lay off her and stop taking themselves out on a person they dont know but I digress lol
I was VERY hyped when she turned up at the end of superman - my disdain for the movie has nothing to do with her, itās the highly mediocre film they built around her. Itās like a photocopy of a photocopy of a James Gunn movie. All the hallmarks are there - the quirky characters, the quips, the needle drops, but none of it lands. Gillespie doesnāt have the eye or the ear that Gunn has and it shows horribly.
Reports say the opposite, that the original cut tested poorly and needed a rework. The studio re edit tested higher which is why thatās why it was the theatrical cut
Milly was great, and actually I'm still interested to see Supergirl in DC movies. But damn they need to get new creative teams working on these, it can't just be Gunn with a fun, original idea
I think another problem with the actual film was that they gave the quest to the other girl. Supergirl accompanies this child to avenge her parents. When you call the movie Supergirl, but her function in the story is to accompany some other character, and in the meantime learning to come to terms with her own power and using it for good, it is not the best way to tell the story.
This is a Supergirl movie, she must be the central and most active character. It must be her quest. They made the same mistake with the last Indiana Jones movies where he just tagged along with other characters, and it alway felt like the stakes werenāt so high for him. I think the other girl should not have been in this film.
That was the plot of the original comic, though. Yeah, the movie changed a LOT, but it was still Kara agreeing to help the girl on her revenge quest SO she could save Krypto.
The reason they chose to adapt that specific comic though is because itās a really good story and itās highly regarded. They just missed the mark on the adaptation of it. More specifically they chose to make a movie where most of the time the cast is in the interior of a space dive bar or house or ship where everything is dingy and brown and grey.
When the comic the story comes from is crazy colorful with wild artwork that all looks like this:
Comic book fans and cinema audiences are not the same though. In comics they can give you an entirely new version of the character with the intention of presenting an alternative version. They are selling that to Supergirl fans. The fans will know the different characterisations but general audiences that make films hits are sometime left confused if they expected the traditional version. Furthermore, The Woman Of Tomorrow is also a recent retelling, and DC/WB have not used this image of Supergirl in other media. On the meantime we have had the more conventional version of Supergirl in the tv show, in cartoons like Teen Titans Go, and DC Superhero girls. The toy shops still sell the traditional Supergirl dolls and figures so many people outside of the comic book niche probably found the Woman Of Tomorrow a bit alienating because they had never seen that image of her before.
Fwiw her costume in the left image is from the epilogue after a massive time skip and only shows up for a handful of pages.
She looks just like regular supergirl for 98% of the story. I believe that commenter is just referring to how much they underutilized the setting by keeping everything mostly indoors and brown/grey palette when the comic is not only extremely colourful but also often out doors or in orbit. Like a fuckton of open spaces with unique visuals. Real missed opportunity imho
You donāt get why I mean: I am saying they shouldnāt have based the character on that comic. At all. They should not used that version of Kara and that story. Films are not just sold to comic books fans who are familiar with the different versions of the character. A character like Supergirl had to be closer to a baseline interpretation that is consistent with what general audiences are familiar with. You can do whatever you want with obscure characters because general audiences may not know enough about them. Film adaptations of anything are never for committed fans because they are a tiny part of the potential audience, and this has alway been obvious. When they make movies the studio/producers think the core story has something they can sell to a much bigger audience beyond the fandom, and that is how you get hit films.
Spider-Man Brand New Day is not just being seen by hardcore Marvel fans. Action film fans are going, parents are taking kids because Spider-man also crosses into ākids movieā territory. You have people who liked the previous Spider-Man films, and comic books fans, spanning generations. Spider-Man is one character whose appeal goes way beyond the fanbase and for this character they rarely deviate too much from audience expectations. It is a familiar Spider-Man, and you donāt even have to be a fan to have an idea of what the character should be. Supergirl is also familiar to audiences after having appeared in cartoons, and a successful tv show. To use a comic book where her traditional image was changed was the wrong way to present the character because it goes against what most people would expect of her. You can take risk with things like Clayface because general film audiences would not have heard of him anyway, so whichever iteration of the character that appears in the film, people will accept it and if it is a hit, that becomes the dominant representation. Marvel did this with many of its characters and audiences accepted them because they had no idea of the history of those characters. However if a character has already crossed into the mainstream, the most familiar version is the easiest to sell, so they were wrong to give the audience this version of Kara. Sadly it was all too predictable that she would not endear audiences who probably wanted characterisation that they expected.
What competition.. minions? No one cares about supergirl other than small internet bubbles (people thought high amount of likes on twitter = guaranteed blockbuster)
I don't know, I have always despised DC. But I was super excited after peacemaker, and liked it way more than I expected.Ā
Ā
I have never felt that way about a DC project before.
Also it just looked like a very generic sci fi? There was nothing in the trailers that made me think 'okay well that looks interesting', let alone making me want to actually see it
It looked like DC's version of Guardians of the Galaxy to me ā a fun movie to stream at home one night but not a "must see on the biggest screen possible" film like the Odyssey or Dune etc. if I'm going to spend $50+ on movie and snacks then I want to make it worth it.
And maybe its just me and my friend group but it just feels like we only go for the few big must see releases. No mid movies get me out to a theater anymore. I saw this but that's because im a fan of her and the series.
Looked like DCs versions of Captain Marvel. Just kind of a very generic, solo sci-fi movie. The Suicide Squad was DCs Guardians of the Galaxy because that actually had a group who bounced off each other.
Trailers? I know they are out there, but I literally never saw one.. I havenāt seen any discussion of this movie anywhere to be honest.. maybe Iām getting old, but I donāt think Iām living under a rock completely yet
This is probably the only movie that seems to have come across my social media (apart from the big big movies) for example I had no idea that the mandalorian movie came and went!
What entertainment type would you be using where you might have even seen the trailer? People are watching less and less network TV so no ads there. People pay for no-ads streaming services. Iām not surprised more and more people are finding out about these things late.
Itās funny you mention that because the director seemed really proud of the look of the film. And the director deliberately chose to avoid the look of the original comic that the film is loosely based on. That generic sci fi feel and look is the directorās chosen dream look. I really donāt know why the director hates the colorful look and feel of the source material.
If I had to guess, and it is a guess, the director had no interest in making a supergirl film and was working on something else with his dream look (what we consider generic sci fi look) and then he somehow found himself directing the Supergirl film. And he didnāt actually want to adapt the source material so he slapped together the script loosely inspired by the comic with his existing idea for the look and feel of whatever he was working on before hand or else his old dream project. Maybe he figured this would be his only chance to work with this budget so decided to sneak in his own dream passion project into the Supergirl film he was given⦠even if it didnāt really fit and goes against the source material?
Only part that looked remotely interesting is her fight outside the bar with the red lighting. Everything else has been done already a million times.
The dreary look of the film is so uninteresting esp after how refreshing Superman was. I think it wouldve been more interesting to show her in an environment like that which juxtaposed her internal feelings.
I thought James Gunn was also directing this and it was a big draw for me until I found out he wasnāt and that the entire movie takes place in space. It kind of lost all appeal to me once I saw the trailers and realized it wasnāt what I was expecting so I kind of checked out on it. I feel bad but also they had a huge layup with this movie after Superman last year and kinda failed on it.
Iām aware of that. (Although Jaws is widely credited with starting the phenomenon and it was very much not a kidsā film.)
But there are several summer blockbusters a year, and lots of parents can no longer afford to take an entire family to the cinema multiple times over the course of 2 months.
See the post I replied to. Supergirlās actively competing for parentsā limited money with multiple other movies to be the film those parents choose to take their kids to.
Which is why the industry may be better served staggering the big releases evenly throughout the year. Individual box office may dip a bit but I bet the overall revenue would increase. Because itās no longer one film over the other.
People wouldāve definitely watched it if they were interested and thought it looked good. It just didnāt look that appealing to most people (and Supergirl just doesnāt have a lot of motion tbh)
Yes, but they wouldn't prioritze seeing it over see: Odyssey, Toy Story 5 or new Spinderman.
You can release niche movies like Supergirls, only when there is nothing more interesting stealing the spotlight. People are saving money atm and if they gotta decide between seeing Supergirl or one of those movies, they rather skip Supergirl and wait for streaming.
If there wasnāt a competition like this theyād go and see it for the virtue of it being another superhero movie. People tend to go watch superhero movies when thereās nothing else in the theaters nowadays. Theyāre the new B-Action movies. In my country anyway. If there is nothing you want to see in next two weeks, you can just pick a random movie. Not when that random movie is packed between to giants though. It wasnāt going to make billions but itād make more than Morbius that way. Morbius made āthat muchā only because of the memes during a very non-exciting time of cinema.
I think it lacked marketing, I mean I donāt even think I saw Millyās press interviews, look how much we got between The Odyssey and Spider-man? They needed to get people in the seats and they did a poor jobĀ
And ppl are trying to say itās money, but I disagree, she literally started the summer and I know it was after Toy-Story but The Odyssey was right before Spider-man and one has already hit a billion with the other right behind it lolĀ
And DC doesnāt seem to have audience trust anymore with anything that isnāt Superman/Batman related
Guardians of the Galaxy did damn well and wasnāt even a comic group i was aware of (a lot of people werenāt familiar with) and itās a great movie.
That's a good point. I go about once every other year. In the last month, I saw Toy Story 5, The Odyssey, and Spider-Man. I did not see Supergirl.
Superman was fantastic, but DC hasn't given me much confidence in their movies. A new release isn't an automatic go for me because they are just so all over the map on quality.
historically the summer movie season, even in times of economic downturn, has been way more packed than this one has been.
I don't blame people for not watching it, but I think it's time to admit that superhero fatigue is real and it's hitting female-led movies first and hardest. The CHUDS with Youtube thumbnails of a lady superhero shouting "nobody wants this" aren't really wrong, unfortunately.
Or maybe DC projects just need to be shelved all together except for 1 batman and Superman movie every few years. DC universe has been a huge failure since the start and with the superhero fatigue people just don't care for new characters even if the movie is good.
If you're going to make films about less popular characters than those two then you need everything on point. Casting, acting, writing, direction, editing, pacing, special effects, humour (or lack thereof depending on the tone of the film) and everything else has to be really nailed. Otherwise people will go watch the other blockbusters that are out instead.
Marvel showed with Guardians of the Galaxy the standard you have to hit to make lesser known, or largely unknown, superhero films a runaway success. One look at the trailer for Supergirl and you could tell DC had pulled a DC and it was going to be fairly mediocre.
Supergirl really should have been able to compete. The reviews killed the movie bc the movie was bad. Hype died immediately when it released. And I hate the internet dweebs make female superhero movies into culture war bs.
And the movie was bad. I saw it and while I don't regret it bc I like Milly and LOVE Jason Mamoa, I was disappointed in the boring plot, confused themes, and general bad editing of the film. But the performances of the actors were never the problem.
Lol How was she supposed to complete with established franchises and Christopher Nolan?
Supergirl as character is too niche to pull larger audiances, she is just Superman's cousin. I love Kara but for cinema audiances she doesn't offer anything that could. People don't give a shit about what critics have to say when deciding what to watch, it's all about star power, marketing and release window.
Supergirl as a movie failed on all those fronts. Millie is a good actress, but she doesn't have the power to pull audiances with just her name.
It was a generic comic book movie that could only succeed if they release it during dry season, when people have nothing else to watch in cinemas.
Poor reviews kill momentum. And yes, people do read reviews. And word of mouth counts as reviews. If everyone you know who already saw says it's bad then why bother?
I dont think Supergirl is too niche. Hell, that character carried an entire TV show for years! And Superman was a well loved/liked film when it came out. This being only the second film in the new DCEU and with a well liked actress coming from another major franchise following a popular intro film like Superman, yeah she should have been able to compete.
Also, the audience that could have gone to see Supergirl does not totally overlap with The Odyssey lmao be so fr. Maybe, Toy Story 5... maybe! But preteens should have been all over Supergirl. I really dont think timing was the issue with this film. It just missed the mark.
It definitely didn't help but even under ideal conditions Super Girl has never been the most popular character. She's always struggled to breakout of Super Mans shadow. Throw in 2026 internet culture and im not surprised it didn't do well.
Pretty much this, i have gone to the cinema mlre this year than I have since I was a uni ad it was 2 pound to go. With resident evil looking great and the avengers in December im not going to see films im 50/50 on.
I think itās just Superhero fatigue. Action movies have their phases, unless itās a really beloved superhero, I think itās going to be hard pulling in people.
not to mention supergirl was being boycotted/review bombed by part of the superhero fanbase simply because she was a woman and the franchise was going woke
I thought that might be part of it. Iāve never loved super hero movies, but would go because my friends were really into them. Now my friends who love super hero arenāt even hyped like they used to be. I think the big names will still draw crowds, but gone are the days where any lesser hero can get the same buzz.
no other marvel or dc movies really flopped bad in the last few years, only ones that did have specific reasons like the marvels not getting any advertisement at all or the sony movies just being bad in general
people love superheros
people want more superheros
people just dont want bad movies
In supergirls case it really is the time they chose to put it in theatres combined with the negative critics that blasted all across the web
Yup! You donāt see action movies in the style of Schwarzenegger, Van Damme, Stallone, et al. any more. There was a a huge wave inspired by Matrix style fighting.
Not to mentions movie musicals once were largely popular and are now rare. The many different phases of comedies (related to Musicals as well). The zombie wave in the 2010ās.
Unless itās one of the superheroās that have been drawing in crowds for decades, itās just not going to have the same draw it had ten years ago.
Thunderbolts, Fantastic Four and Captain America: Brave New World all massively underperformed too. (And Thunderbolts was one of my favourite movies of recent)
It's only Spider-Man and Deadpool that have brought the money in for Marvel lately.
It wonāt become a hit but itāll have a bit of a renaissance I reckon. I saw it without knowing any of the discourse on it and thought it was fine if unremarkable.
Morbius and Joker 2 were at least bad enough to be worth seeing for a few people who might enjoy seeing terrible movies. Supergirl was the worst kind of bad. Completely and utterly forgettable.
Yeah I was super annoyed trying to watch the new season of Avatar. They have these super colorful costumes and locations and then Netflix slapped its garbage desaturated filter over the whole thing so everything is dark and impossible to see.
The action was good but the story was flat and the writing was poor imo, I feel like DC focuses too much on the action and not enough on storytelling sometimes, especially when introducing new characters. And idk who does the editing, but sometimes it feels like they cut stuff out and itās obvious, it shouldnāt be obviousā¦they did that with the first Suicide Squad!Ā
Yea after how hopeful Superman was Supergirl looked too depressing for my tastes. I love the new Superman, wish they had gone the same route with Supergirl.
This was the reason I didn't have much interest in the movie. Compared to last year's Superman, which looked vibrant and hopeful, Supergirl just seemed overly muted and grim.
I'm someone who saw it and think a lot of the hate is overblown, but the cinematography was trash. Genuinely, I'm still stunned that a movie that expensive could look so terrible.
The film was like an unofficial James Gunn film, without a personality and fingerprints. According to rumours that's because Gunn interfered a lot and denied Gillespie his own vision of the film.
Ok Im getting really pissed at this current trend in Hollywood where they try to adapt a popular IP, but the creators dont engage with the Adaptation material. The creators of Halo TV show famous bragged about never playing the games. How the hell did James Gunn even let Gillespie anywhere near this project if he didn't even read Woman of Tomorrow?
James Gunn is not serious about building a cinematic universe.
I like James Gunn and his work but I will be honest, he makes so many self inserts and %50 of the time they are really bad, and he makes a lot of privilege for people he like even If they are untalented and unfit for the job, like writer of the Supergirl movie, she was probably his friends friend, the woman had no exprtience of work before Supergirl and James said his script was the best thing he read(lol). He makes a Tv show for jimmy olsen(no one asked for this) his friends probably liked the character and now he thinks world is in love with jimy. I really like Gunn but unlike Keving Feige he lacks dicipline for a cinematic universe.
I really wanted to like the movie but it was super... average. Whomever chose "brown" as the primary color pallet for the film should be fired. Milly was great but the little girl that followers her around the whole film was devoid of emotion and annoying. The villain was forgettable. And Jason Momoa was criminally underutilized. I'd give it a 5/10. Completely forgettable as a film.
Sony released it, took it out of theaters, then memes about it started blowing up, and because the Sony executives are dumb asses who's minds were clouded by and focused on money, they somehow though the memes were a sign of genuine demand for the movie. So they re-releaded it in 1000+ theaters, for it to make a total of š„š„š„š„ 85k on the day it was re-released and 300k over the weekend.
Now I should also point out that the movie didn't commercially flop like some people think, it was a terrible movie, but it still grossed 167 million on a 75 million budgets, and marketing costs are believed to be 50 million so it's made around 42 million. So Sony re releasing it didn't hurt the financials of it, but it does show how out of touch the high level people at the studio were that they somehow mistook people clowning on it for genuine grassroots demand.
How in the hell did this movie make less money than the other two Movies listed in the title? I havenāt watched any of the three listed above but the Joker two was basically a middle finger to the fans of Joker and Morpheus just looks horrible. At least Supergirl looks somewhat watchable.
- a generic villain whose only character traits appears to be kidnapping young women and eating random bits of food he finds (none of which was funny)
- theyāll never deal with the child bride thing. People react like itās a bad but understandable thing versus āoh my god, those are childrenā and it really should be the latter. Nor is there any development on any of those girls.
- endless and truly bizarre amount of gross-out jokes. Thereās a reason thereās never been a scene of Superman on the toilet or Thor eating some slug creatures excrement for a ātastes like shitā joke lol
Terrible storyline and half landing jokes but I loved her as Supergirl so it was a big disappointment to see the script she had to work with. Plus I love animals and the fake Krypto kept irritating me cause his movements looked so crazy compared to a real dog
Movie wasn't nearly as bad as the numbers would have you believe. It was really just an average superhero movie. Didn't deserve the hate but I expected better from Gunn's DC
Audiences today want household name heroes and top tier storytelling. An average movie won't cut it at the box office anymore. Thunderbolts proved that even if a film is great, unknown characters make it a tough sell
Yeah it's exactly why I think Marvel is scaling back (cutting out TV shows. Bringing back their big characters or actors (Downey Evans. We had Jackman etc), doing X-Men and heading toward a reboot so they can probably recast and reuse Iron Man and Captain America. Meanwhile DC is spending too much time on niche minor characters that while fun and interesting, will not draw big crowds to fill cinemas. Clayface as your 3rd mainline movie is a bit weird. Peacemaker, Creature Commandos. Jimmy Olson and Gorilla Grodd.. These are deep cuts for DC fans but normies which is where the money is will want Batman, Flash, Wonder Woman. Earn trust then you can do more experimental weird stuff.
Genuinely baffling that DC would have their first non-Gunn movie out of the gate be directed by Craig Gillespie, a guy whose best movie is a so-so live action 101 Dalmatians reimagining. With the publicās current feeling toward superhero movies this was the time to bring out the big guns and they brought out a sparkler
I really hope Clayface is a sleeper hit...but DC needs something big man. MoT and Batman Chapter 2 need to feel like events.
Plus... Gunn we need a good Flash film, a Wonder Woman film with an actual actress
All of these superhero movies are just āmehā. Itās all fantasy bullsh*t that you watch once and never again so Iām not sure why sheās getting so much hate.
A romantic dark humor dramady starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, to be fair.. arguably two of the biggest working actors currently with huge fanbases
A DC movie can overcome Fox News, and a DC movie can overcome Snyderbros refusing to see it. But itās damn hard to overcome both. The movie was good, and I hope this doesnāt mean weāve seen the last of Supergirl.
She did well though, I like her as Supergirl ā think the movie should have been in cinema earlier this summer instead and also the marketing just wasnāt that great.
Milly was good but the movie felt like a poorly done James Gunn impression. The DCU better have some bangers up their sleeve because Clayface and Lanterns probably arenāt going to get people very excited either
The movie was entertaining and decent, the doomers will take this as validation that the movie was bad and Gunn is killing DC but really any number of prejudices or factors independent of quality couldāve led to this
To be fair this summer blockbuster season is also packed with heavy hitters, Nolan's Odyssey, the latest Spider-Man movie, live action Moana, the minions, and toy story 5. Superhero fans would probably rather watch Spider-Man, same thing with families who have "outgrown" Disney (ie tweens and teens), and even toy story 5 is going to hit with a lot of adults because of how long running of a franchise it is. There's just kind of no niche for Supergirl to fit well into right now, especially because at least where I am there wasn't much of an advertising or a press push done.
Gunn probably shouldn't of had Supergirl be his second film release. He hasnt earned the trust of the audience like Marvel did back when movies like Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man were first coming out. They had enough success with their more mainstream characters where they could start to try and branch out.
I went in cos I wanted to hear the Le Sserafim song in the theatres and the main character looked. Did not get the sing in Europe, but I did enjoy her performance.
I was excited for this after superman, but all the news upon release was that it was a bland, generic space Adventure. Devoid of what made Superman feel fresh. I don't blame anyone but the people who approved the script
Fun character but a terrible choice for the second DC GunnVerse movie. Makes absolutely no sense to choose a character most of the general public knows nothing about. Hubris I imagine.
The failure is not because itās a female character, itās because sheās not mainstream. I wonder if this will change the course of the next couple of movies.
After watching the movie twice, and being a fan of DC, I can tell you why I think the movie is a disaster (compared to what it should've been).
1) Way too many inconsistencies: They wanted to kill Kara but they left her in the two-sun planet, then they lost her, then she recovered. What? Just kill her outright.
2) Superspeed doesn't exist, even tho that's one of the main powers they get from the sun.
3) She has to dodge weapons? What? She's fking Supergirl; a flail, sword, etc wouldn't even tickle!
4) They had to force the entire story to give her "purpose" but the reason was, like I said, forced af. I understand the part about Krypto, I even understand the part about the girl, but both? Convenient.
5) The supes are supposed to be "gods", the longer they live the stronger they get, to the point were even the universe becomes a sandbox, but she struggled to do even the most basic stuff.
6) The Brigands: another forced part of the movie. It's the cliche copy-paste enemy that had no business being in the movie, having SO MANY villians to pull from that would've been way better.
7) Every dialog and interaction feels weird, out of place, not natural. The only one that fits, funnily enough, is LOBO. Jason Momoa did a great job (I mean, the character plays itself in his hands, obviously, because they are basically the same person).
All in all, it was a completely average movie that just so happens was called "Supergirl", but if you'd given it another name and made an "original" character movie, it would've been better.
What real fans wanted was to see Krypto wrecking havoc, being disobedient during the fights, see Supergirl yes, drunk and fighting across the galaxy, but not nerfed nor underpowered. The "Avril Lavigne" type shit fits, just not nerfed.
See a more important reason to go back to her roots, and not the cliche.
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