While this summer looks to be jam packed with new films, superhero films have surprisingly taken a back seat to other upcoming blockbuster epics, whether that is a good thing or not is in the eye of the beholder. Marvel and Sony will be releasing Spider-Man: Brand New Day in July and DC will be releasing it’s own Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow later this month on the 26th, and while we still don’t know much about Spider-Man, early reactions are coming in for Supergirl and so far it seems like DC may have a sleeper hit on their hands.
Supergirl takes Milly Alcock’s Kara Zor-El, first introduced at the end of the new DCU’s first foundational 2025 film Superman, and gives her her own film to continue expanding James Gunn’s comic inspired universe. Directed by Craig Gillespie, the film clocks in at under two hours and originally was not anticipated to be a massive hit based on the overall premise of the story. Jason Momoa joins her as fan favorite character Lobo, and so far the trailers for the space western have pointed to a very Guardians of the Galaxy inspired galactic scale film, while still being down to Earth enough to have practical sets and a dog as one of the main characters. It seems like although Supergirl will be based in space, it will still be a somewhat self contained story driven film and not a spectacle driven by over the top CGI and massive world building.
According to a new story from ComicBookMovie, DC has screened the film early for select critics and influencers and the reception has been overwhelmingly positive, typically falling anywhere from “pretty good” to “great”. Well known film critic John Campea had this to say:
“I’ve had a few people get in touch with me over the last day or so, letting me know their thoughts on the new Supergirl film. They said it’s pure excellence. They loved it. They were absolutely thrilled by it and entertained by it. Can’t imagine there could have been any better. They really had a good time. Again, take that with a grain of salt — that it is somebody from inside the studio system.”
Like Campea himself said, make sure to take this with a grain of salt because some of this feedback was from studio insiders so there might be some bias there. From a cynical standpoint that’s not necessarily a bad thing though, because back during the DCEU days the Zack Snyder films could ever garner positive studio reception. Campea continued:
“The second person that I heard from was somebody who works with one of the major outlets. And what they said to me was: Supergirl is far better than it had any business being. Better. Now again, this is not a studio-related person, but they just came out and said this movie was way better than it had any business being. They particularly said they laughed a lot. And they mentioned Jason Momoa was terrific as Lobo.”
It should come as no surprise to anyone that Momoa is being considered fantastic as Lobo, considering he looks as if he were born for the role. That’s one of those castings up there with Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool – after seeing the actor take on the character, it’s hard to imagine anyone else in that role. And that’s my opinion going by 5 seconds of footage from trailers before seeing the movie.
Ticket sales have begun for the film being released later this month on the 26th, and early reports are tracking the film to bring in $55 million domestically for its opening weekend. Granted this is much less than James Gunn’s first new DCU film, Superman, which brought in $125 million during its opening weekend, that is to be expected just based on the characters being explored in each movie. Superman is the world’s most recognized character, whereas Supergirl is his much lesser known cousin. Supergirl‘s production cost was roughly $175 million where as Superman‘s was $225 million, meaning that Supergirl only has to bring in $325 million to break even whereas needed anywhere upwards of $600 million to achieve the same goal. Considering the first $55 million is only domestic and doesn’t include any sort of international numbers, $325 million is very achievable, especially which such positive early reactions.
As the 26th gets closer, we’re sure there will be more early critical reviews out there considering how quickly some of these initial reactions are coming in. For now, I am personally very excited for the film because I very much prefer a character and story driven film to a CGI spectacle, and that looks to be exactly what Supergirl is aiming to give us. Are you looking forward to Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow? Tickets on sale now, so make sure to be one of the first to see the film when it premiers to general audiences! Expect more updates on early critical reception as they come in, and as always let us know your thoughts down in the comments!
Source: ComicBookMovie
