Supergirl Will Decide Whether James Gunn’s DCU Can Pull Off a Rare Superhero Feat
Supergirl’s first trailer teases a rare superhero-movie feat. Next summer, Craig Gillespie and Milly Alcock take flight to prove whether James Gunn’s DCU can finally break the mold.
The first Supergirl teaser just landed, and it makes a bold promise: James Gunn and Peter Safran's DCU might actually adapt a great comic the way it was written. Not a remix. Not a vibes-only tribute. An honest-to-goodness, stick-to-the-pages take. For live-action superhero cinema, that is rarer than it should be.
The basics
- Supergirl hits United States theaters next summer from Warner Bros. Pictures and DC Studios.
- Craig Gillespie is directing.
- Milly Alcock is back as Kara Zor-El/Supergirl after her brief appearance at the end of 2025's Superman (which James Gunn directed).
- The teaser points straight at Tom King and Bilquis Evely's comic Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow as the blueprint.
- Eve Ridley plays Ruthye Marye Knoll, and Matthias Schoenaerts is Krem of the Yellow Hills.
- Lobo shows up in the movie, even though he is not part of the Woman of Tomorrow comic.
- There are tweaks (Krem's look is different), but the spine of the story appears intact.
So, how faithful are we talking?
Faithful enough that the trailer drops a line straight out of the comic. It is not subtle about it either:
"Krypton didn't die in a day. The gods are not that kind,"
In King and Evely's miniseries, Kara teams up with a determined young girl named Ruthye on a revenge quest targeting Krem of the Yellow Hills. The hook is personal for Kara and kicks into gear after something bad happens to Krypto. The footage suggests the film is following that arc pretty closely. Yes, the movie is making some changes (Krem's design is new, and again, Lobo is in the film even though he is not in the book), but the bones look the same.
Why that matters
Live-action superhero movies rarely commit to a single comic's narrative as-is. They usually mash up eras and events, grab a title, and move on. Gunn's Superman channeled a DC tone but told an original story. Marvel's Captain America: Civil War borrowed the name and a few ideas and then went its own way. Animated projects are the ones that typically stick closest to the page. The common refrain is that comics and movies are too different to translate directly. They do not have to be.
What this could signal for the DCU
If Supergirl really is a straight-ahead adaptation of Woman of Tomorrow and it works, that sets a template for Gunn and Safran's DCU: pick a beloved run and do it justice. That makes the door feel open to genuinely faithful versions of things fans have been dreaming about for years, like Batman: Death in the Family or Kingdom Come. For once, the trailer is pitching ambition in the direction I actually want to see.