quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
Re: Supergirl. When she showed up in the final scene of the SUPERMAN movie last summer, drunk and cursing, that may have shocked alot of people.

Is that supposed to be "cool" ? More like a turnoff for me and my kids !

I haven't seen the last Superman, so until you posted this I had no idea she was even in it. If that's her film introduction, yuck. Who the heck wants to watch two hours of that?

I think one of the problems with Supergirl is that Milly Alcock is not especially pretty. She looks kinda like Bjork. Compare to Gal Gadot, Scarlett Johansson, Elizabeth Olson. People still want to see glamour and beauty when they go to the movies.

Yes, she shows up in the final scene at the Fortress of Solitude to pick up her dog, Krypto. She is staggering, obviously inebriated, and she uses the "B" word, which I thought was unnecessary. There was actually a good deal of cursing in the SUPERMAN film. The S word, A-hole, the D word (anatomy). Not sure how that added to the movie. Not kid friendly, in my opinion. Don't recall any of that in the prior Superman films.

Apparently the Supergirl film uses the S, B, and A words throughout. How does that attract an audience ?

quote:

Originally posted by Ted Dastick Jr.:

quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
Re: Supergirl. When she showed up in the final scene of the SUPERMAN movie last summer, drunk and cursing, that may have shocked alot of people.

Is that supposed to be "cool" ? More like a turnoff for me and my kids !

I haven't seen the last Superman, so until you posted this I had no idea she was even in it. If that's her film introduction, yuck. Who the heck wants to watch two hours of that?

quote:

Originally posted by Bill Mullins:
I think one of the problems with Supergirl is that Milly Alcock is not especially pretty. She looks kinda like Bjork. Compare to Gal Gadot, Scarlett Johansson, Elizabeth Olson. People still want to see glamour and beauty when they go to the movies.

From what I have seen of her work in the past, she may be a good enough actress to survive this failure. I think there was an effort to tone down her looks for "Supergirl", and certainly the attitude she was supposed to project in the role was neither glamorous or beautiful.

In fact I recently read that Alcock was required to, shall we say, tie down her assets to be more Supergirl like. A wardrobe choice that she found uncomfortable and may have led even more to that pained expression always on her face.

To me, the studio mucked this one up more so than even Morphius or Captain Marvel or Madame Webb or The Flash, or any other comic book oriented film bomb that you can think of because it had the most potential to be a good movie. When the first installment disappoints it's pretty hard to pitch the trilogy. So does Supergirl do cameo appearances with her dog for the rest of the DC universe franchise? Maybe the real problem is James Gunn's vision.

Mortal Kombat, Supergirl, Masters of the Universe, Disclosure Day. I can't recall a summer with so many misfires (financially speaking, not necessarily in terms of reviews)

quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
Yes, she shows up in the final scene at the Fortress of Solitude to pick up her dog, Krypto. She is staggering, obviously inebriated, and she uses the "B" word, which I thought was unnecessary. There was actually a good deal of cursing in the SUPERMAN film. The S word, A-hole, the D word (anatomy). Not sure how that added to the movie. Not kid friendly, in my opinion. Don't recall any of that in the prior Superman films.

Apparently the Supergirl film uses the S, B, and A words throughout. How does that attract an audience ?

quote:

Originally posted by Ted Dastick Jr.:

quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
Re: Supergirl. When she showed up in the final scene of the SUPERMAN movie last summer, drunk and cursing, that may have shocked alot of people.

Is that supposed to be "cool" ? More like a turnoff for me and my kids !

I haven't seen the last Superman, so until you posted this I had no idea she was even in it. If that's her film introduction, yuck. Who the heck wants to watch two hours of that?

The comic book series the movie adapted is recommended for ages 14+ although the curse words in it were given the "$#!&!"-type treatment. I was immediately concerned that they chose to adapt that particular series, but not because it was kid friendly story, which it isn't. It's for teenagers, at the youngest. Supergirl's state of mind at the end of the Superman movie and for the vast majority of this one is driven by her overwhelming sadness and anger at the loss of her family and planet, which happened when she was a teenager, so she didn't have the same experience as did Superman, who was an infant at the time, meaning he has no memory of the tragedy.

Basically, she travels to worlds with red suns which dampen her powers enough that she can self-medicate in a way she couldn't on Earth with its yellow sun, the source of her and Superman's power.

It's essentially the greatest Supergirl tale ever written, certainly the best of the past 15 years or so, but it was an epic tale, and too much for a 2 hour movie, it turned out, as it's missing so much of what made it so special.

Milly was a good Supergirl, but the actor playing her traveling partner, Ruthye, was too young. She is the narrator of the comic series which unfolds over the course of months, if not years, unlike the movie adaptation, the whole of which transpires over 3 days. Unfortunately, Ruthye's dialogue (and narration) was dumbed down quite a bit from the comic to the movie. There was also no reason for either Superman or Lobo to appear in this film, but I can understand why they did.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill Mullins:
I think one of the problems with Supergirl is that Milly Alcock is not especially pretty. She looks kinda like Bjork. Compare to Gal Gadot, Scarlett Johansson, Elizabeth Olson. People still want to see glamour and beauty when they go to the movies.

Adam "AH!" Hughes and Stanley "Artgerm" Lau both have comic book covers with VERY popular versions of Supergirl and the movie did not choose to go that way. Here are some classic covers.

Hughes:



Artgerm:



Artgerm was just commissioned to do a special variant cover with Milly as Supergirl and this is what resulted:



At the end of the day, the movie was good, but there's not enough to it. It could've been great, but a TV series running at least 4 hours (or more) would've been necessary to tell the story as written, and no, that story isn't for little kids.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: chesspieceface,

Seems like the only really successful films this summer will be the ones geared towards kids (Spider-Man, Toy Story, Minions) and the 2 horror films from back in May (Obsession and Backrooms)

They are predicting that the new Minions film is on track to bring in only about 65 M domestically this weekend, which is half of what the last 2 films made only a few years ago. Franchise fatigue maybe ?

quote:

Originally posted by David R:
They are predicting that the new Minions film is on track to bring in only about 65 M domestically this weekend, which is half of what the last 2 films made only a few years ago. Franchise fatigue maybe ?

Could be a combination of a "Toy Story 5" hangover and Fourth of July outdoor events. Stacking up kid's movies is as bad as stacking up superhero or franchise movies. People chose one and skip the rest for later streaming. They are not needing to go to a theatre every week.

It's set in the 1920's.
That may have been a mistake as the average kid today generally only gets references from the 1930's on.

Isn't this the 7th film in the Despicable Me/Minions series ? Maybe it went on too long

I was at least a half-hour early for The Mandalorian last weekend and I wanted a snack but I also didn't want to pay whatever a box of candy is in the theater. I saw one of the pretzels and that looked good until I saw how much it cost...$17. Yeah, it's a big pretzel but for $17 I can still get lunch at most fast-food places. Most. I went without a snack.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

quote:

Originally posted by David R:
They are predicting that the new Minions film is on track to bring in only about 65 M domestically this weekend, which is half of what the last 2 films made only a few years ago. Franchise fatigue maybe ?

Could be a combination of a "Toy Story 5" hangover and Fourth of July outdoor events. Stacking up kid's movies is as bad as stacking up superhero or franchise movies. People chose one and skip the rest for later streaming. They are not needing to go to a theatre every week.

Yeah, I've had enough of the Minions just from the movie ads the past several years. I haven't seen a movie.

quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
Isn't this the 7th film in the Despicable Me/Minions series ? Maybe it went on too long

My kids showed some of them to me. I was always confused why they made 2 separate series instead of one. I guess the Despicable Me films involve the bald guy Gru and the Minions concern just the yellow guys ?

The new Young George Washington film made more than double what Supergirl made in its 2nd week. They are now saying SG may turn out to be one of the biggest bombs of the year.

quote:

Originally posted by David R:
The new Young George Washington film made more than double what Supergirl made in its 2nd week. They are now saying SG may turn out to be one of the biggest bombs of the year.

First, I did not hear anything about "Young George Washington" before just now. Second, I did not know that George Washington was ever young. Third, the film has come in 3rd at the box office on 4th of July weekend with about $20M, behind "Toy Story 5" and "Minions", and indeed ahead of "Supergirl".

"Young George Washington" has come out of Angel Studios, which is a kind of an independent crowd funding distributor. I think there is a sort of network out there for people who want to see more patriotic and/or more faith-based movies and that is where those films are heavily promoted. There is more than one market for entertainment and lots of room to find a popular following for any well-made, halfway good stories.

There's a "Young Abe Lincoln" movie due later this year from Vivid Entertainment. Strike while the iron is hot!

There have still been only 21 movies this year that played in US theatres that have even hit 100 million, worldwide.
"Supergirl" is the most recent but likely won't even make it into the US Top 15 before it gets knocked down further by upcoming movies.
The DCU will need "Lanterns" on HBO MAX to play well so as to get back the momentum the fledging movie universe had after "Superman".

Pretty clear that "Toy Story" will handily outgross "Minions". Buzz n' Woody will pass "Michael" for 2nd place domestically any second now. It will pass current domestic/worldwide #1 "Mario Brothers" in both categories sometime later this month.

Very happy for the A24 releases "Backrooms" and "The Drama" which have done very well indeed. I'm a charter member of their AAA24 online club, and I have the little A24 logo card they sent me on my keyring. Why, that practically makes me an associate producer.

Supergirl is inching towards 60 M domestically. It is a total financial disaster, despite some decent reviews. She will be in the next Superman which is coming summer 2027.

There are some theories as to why it flopped. Some surmise that male comic book fans are not interested in female superheroes, or that there are simply not enough female comic book out there. I don't know the answer to that one.

Seems like the only truly successful female comic book film was the first Wonder Woman movie.

quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
There are some theories as to why it flopped. Some surmise that male comic book fans are not interested in female superheroes, or that there are simply not enough female comic book out there. I don't know the answer to that one.

Seems like the only truly successful female comic book film was the first Wonder Woman movie.

That's the go-to easy answer that I said would be used and it's the default set up for predictable film failures. Always play the victim of other people's bias, rather than take responsibility for the mistakes yourself. By that I mean the studio and the executives who are trying to make a blockbuster but can't understand that you don't bring real world problems to a comic book superhero because it's not fun. You don't get a big box office from limiting your audience. You try to broaden its appeal while not turning people off.

Problems with "Supergirl", let's see:
- She is angry and depressed through out.
- Her sidekick is angry and depressed through out.
- The dog's shot and suffering.
- The movie is too violent for 11 year girls and family viewing is out.
- The movie is not violent enough for comic fans.
- The script is not close enough to the source material for comic fans.
- The story is not familiar to non-comic fans.
- The main villain is someone nobody but comic fans know.
- Lobo is doing an introduction, but doesn't have that much to do.
- The story has been altered to include human trafficking, but in a PG sort of way.
- The film promotion did not know what they were trying to sell or to whom.
- Some of Alcock's musing interviews were embarrassing.
- Preview audiences saw different cuts of the movie and did not rate them high.
- The studio knew it had trouble well before release.
- Many scenes ultimately got cut out to shorten the runtime and amp up the action.
- Production cost too much and a lot of money was just wasted on the cutting room floor.
- New merchandise is not flying off the shelf.
- Word of mouth in the LHS is that it's OK.

That's my quick list. I could probably think of more reasons, all having to do with mistakes that do not involve female bias. It's like with the female Ghostbusters or the last "Charlie's Angels" or even "The Marvels" and "Madam Web". They bombed out and the chant went up that the public was bias against female led films. Really? Did anybody see those films? I did, much later. They were awful. I'm a female too, and no bias was necessary.

I don't know why some people say that the public was "unfamiliar with the character of Supergirl."

She's been in the comics continuously since 1959. She had the film in 1984 (which also failed) and has been in cartoons.

She was on the TV show Smallville in the late 2000s, towards the end of the run. She had the TV show on CBS and later WB in the 2010s.

Maybe you are correct, that people are turned off by the angry, depressed, drunken character. Maybe the "bad girl" thing has gone too far.