It was only a matter of time before one of the trades took a deep dive into what went wrong with Supergirl, and The Hollywood Reporter just dropped a bombshell piece about the second DC Studios movie.
The trailers underwhelmed, and Milly Alcock has come under fire for comments about "Christian dads" and Kara Zor-El's sexuality. However, it seems the problems that led to Supergirl being one of the biggest ever superhero movie box office flops started long before that.
DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn and filmmaker Craig Gillespie had "creative differences over the direction of the movie," which "never found its footing in the post-production process." As one insider puts it, "'They were not creatively aligned’ is the polite way of describing things.'"
While other insiders dispute this and suggest the friction was "healthy," it seems the realisation that something wasn't working came as far back as May 2025, after filming wrapped. Both DC Studios and Gillespie realised something was wrong, and test screening results that December weren't good (they're scored on a scale out of 100 points, and Supergirl never escaped the 60s).
With that, Gunn turned to writer Jeremy Slater (Moon Knight, Mortal Kombat), who has previously worked on the now-scrapped The Authority movie. While screenwriter Ana Nogueira remained involved, it sounds like he wrote, or at least helped with, scenes for nine days of reshoots. However, as post-production continued, other issues arose, including music.
A cover of Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" was used for the final battle at a February test screening, and both that and the cover of Jimmy Eat World's "The Middle" (which has been widely ridiculed) were chosen by Gunn, not Gillespie.
Two editors also worked on Supergirl: Gillespie's longtime collaborator Tatiana S. Riegel (Cruella) and Gunn's pick, Fred Raskin (Peacemaker). Test screening scores slowly improved, reached the low 70s, but then DC Studios decided to "force a bakeoff" by creating two competing cuts: Gillsepsie's and the studio's.
"It is unclear what major differences emerged," the trade explains, "but one source says Gillespie’s version was 11 minutes longer and featured more of the villain, Krem, played by Matthias Schoenaerts. When the two competing versions tested, the scores surprisingly dropped significantly, although the studio's inched out ahead of Gillespie’s...but by only two points, according to sources."
"Gillespie’s version scored strongly on song choices, pacing and villain," it adds. "Eking out a win, even a middling one, the studio chose its cut as the one to go into theaters. A studio insider says the differences were not particularly pronounced."
No further tests occurred, and Gunn chose to release what was essentially his version of Supergirl. The movie has 54% on Rotten Tomatoes and was given a B- CinemaScore by moviegoers. As one filmmaker puts it, "[A bakeoff] happens more than you think, but it’s not normal. If a studio is going to put money into the test process, it means they feel strongly about certain things."
From this point, it's said Gillespie had to "advocate" for anything he wanted in the movie, with the implication that the version of Supergirl we saw in theaters was not the one he wanted. However, while it's easy to blame Gunn for a bad edit, it's worth noting that things clearly went wrong in the scripting stage.
That made baffling changes to the comic, which led to a grungy, bland adaptation of a visually stunning cosmic adventure. Nogueira has even inadvertently revealed that she misunderstood the comic's ending, turning a story about not taking revenge into a Mad Max-style revenge flick. She remains attached to the upcoming Wonder Woman reboot and Teen Titans.
Supergirl is now playing in theaters.