Supergirl is DCEU-bound! Deadline is reporting that Warner and DC are developing a new Supergirl movie, with the acquisition of screenwriter Oren Uziel, who’s currently working on the live-action video game adaptation movie, Sonic the Hedgehog, coming off scripts for The Cloverfield Paradox, Shimmer Lake, Freaks of Nature and 22 Jump Street. He’s also working the script for a Mortal Kombat reboot film.
While that is the extent of the substantive details, the belief is that – similar to the separate movie/television dynamic of The Flash with Ezra Miller in the movies and Grant Gustin on TV – the new cinematic Supergirl will be a different iteration from the one currently played by Melissa Benoist on The CW television series. Interestingly, with the season 4-bound Supergirl television series having introduced Superman (as played by Tyler Hoechlin,) back in season 2, in which the super-powered Kryptonian cousins teamed up, the cinematic Girl of Steel could end up doing something similar with Henry Cavill’s Superman.
That, however, is the part of this story where rumours take over, since the report goes into some loose talk about the purported purpose of the new Supergirl movie. Apparently, the intention here is to inject a little life – and maybe levity – to the next movie venture of Cavill’s Superman after a major behind-the-scenes overhaul of personnel in the aftermath of the lackluster performance of last year’s Justice League; a monumental financial failure that arrived after the lucrative and culturally groundbreaking success of the Gal Gadot-starring Wonder Woman just a few months earlier. However, it is still uncertain if the plan is to introduce the new Supergirl in a solo movie and have her join Superman in a later movie, or to simply launch an introductory Supergirl solo movie that immediately brandishes a team-up with Cavill’s Superman.
Regardless, things are still quite chaotic over at the DCEU, which is scrambling with spinoff plans, trying to recreate Wonder Woman‘s magic with the other properties. Fortunately, the December-scheduled, Jason Momoa-starring Aquaman solo movie looks promising in its trailer, and Warner is banking big with the November 2019-scheduled sequel, Wonder Woman 1984. However, the follow-up efforts seem to lack rhyme or reason with efforts like an origin movie for the Joker starring Joaquin Phoenix (not Jared Leto,) and return vehicles for Margot Robbie’s Suicide Squad character, Harley Quinn, in female-led team-up Birds of Prey, with potential follow-ups in Suicide Squad 2 and an untitled Joker/Harley Quinn movie in which Leto would prospectively return as the Joker.
Of course, the Girl of Steel is no stranger to the movies, with the Christopher Reeve Superman-era effort in 1984’s Supergirl, which starred Helen Slater. While that film has a subset of a fans who hold it in acclaim as a cult classic, the film was a shameful nadir for the comic book movie genre, and its domestic-only release grossed a paltry $14 million.
Regardless, the introduction of Supergirl (usually a lighthearted and optimistic character,) into the DCEU could be an attempt to simultaneously tap into the lucrative Amazonian estrogen of Wonder Woman while reconfiguring the movie continuity away from its morose introduction in 2013’s Man of Steel and bleak expansion in 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
We’ll keep you update on the Supergirl movie as things develop.