Struggling to take off … Milly Alcock in Supergirl. Photograph: Warner Bros. Pictures/AP View image in fullscreen Struggling to take off … Milly Alcock in Supergirl. Photograph: Warner Bros. Pictures/AP Week in geek Film Supergirl is a box office catastrophe. How can Marvel and DC save the superhero movie? Ben Child Cinematic universes rely on audiences investing in minor characters – but as that interest wanes, it may be up to the big guns to keep the genre afloat
I t’s sometimes hard to believe that modern Superman movies existed for nearly four decades before the Man of Steel met Batman on the big screen. Since 2008, when Iron Man first clanged into life, we’ve become used to superhero cinema as one giant, interlocking machine: capes, gods, aliens and magic rocks all rattling around the same cosmic pinball table. There have been dozens of these comic book films, often built around characters once little known to the average cinemagoer: Rocket Raccoon, Ant-Man, Blue Beetle.
Until recently, audiences lapped up each new arrival like an all-you-can-eat superhero buffet. It felt as if there would always be another dusty helmet, glowing cube or giant talking tree waiting in the great comic book attic to be transformed into a billion-dollar proposition. Nobody expected the well to run dry this soon. Which brings us somewhat awkwardly to Supergirl ’s disastrous box office.
Read more The new DC Studios film, starring Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El, opened to just $38m in North America and about $68m worldwide last weekend , grim figures for a film reportedly costing around $170m, before marketing spend. This has been seen as a crisis for James Gunn’s new DCU, just two films in. But the more interesting question may be whether Supergirl has exposed a problem that now stretches far beyond a single comic book studio.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe trained audiences to believe minor characters mattered, because they were stepping stones to something colossal: a major team-up like the Avengers movies, or at least the next link in an exciting chain of intrigue. But when a film such as Supergirl fails to pick up momentum, the difficulty becomes apparent – and we could say the same about Marvel’s Eternals , the Sony live action Spider-Verse films such as Madame Web , or even DC’s The Flash .
View image in fullscreen No momentum … Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden, Salma Hayek and Gemma Chan in Eternals (2021). Photograph: Marvel Studios/Courtesy of Marvel Studios Superhero cinematic universes are built to expand, with each addition contributing to the overall sense of a vast fictional Lego set. When one of the pieces doesn’t fit, it is hard to encourage fans to bother with the next instalment. Does Supergirl now turn up in the forthcoming Man of Tomorrow to prove to the wider world that she does care about more than Krypto and getting drunk? That may be one way forward, if Gunn’s mooted sequel to last year’s Superman is a smash hit.
It also makes it more likely that DC, which has already trashed one entire comic book universe, will pivot towards better-known superheroes. Andy Muschietti, director of the It films, has been tapped to helm a Batman: The Brave and the Bold movie that will exist within the main continuity ( Robert Pattinson’s version lives in his own version of Gotham, and will never meet Superman or Wonder Woman). There will also be increased pressure on projects such as the forthcoming superhero-horror hybrid Clayface, even if the latter…