Supergirl stumbled at the box office. The new DCU is finally holding its nerve.

There is a specific kind of silence that descends on Hollywood when a tentpole budgeted at upwards of $170 million opens to a mere $68 million worldwide. That was the reality facing James Gunn’s new DCU this past weekend as Supergirl hit cinemas. As the crucial second chapter in a rebooted universe, Craig Gillespie’s adaptation of the acclaimed Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow comic miniseries had a mountain to climb. The resulting film is fascinating, flawed, and met with the exact kind of mixed reception that usually prompts studio executives to start casually deleting release dates from their upcoming slates.

I will say this in defence of the film: it refuses to be boring. Gillespie and screenwriter Ana Nogueira have genuinely tried to translate the weird, bruised melancholy of the 2021 source material to the screen. Sometimes it works, and sometimes you can feel the severe strain of serving two masters — telling a standalone sci-fi story while doing the obligatory heavy lifting for a franchise still laying its foundation. Even Jason Momoa finally appearing as the intergalactic bounty hunter Lobo, a casting rumour we’ve chewed on since 2023, feels less like an organic narrative choice and more like an injection of raw, marketable chaos.

But the film’s greatest asset, and the reason it ultimately justifies its existence despite the commercial bruising, is Milly Alcock. Her Kara Zor-El is a sharp departure from the sunny optimism we usually associate with the House of El. She is angry, traumatised, and phenomenally watchable. Alcock anchors the film through its messiest third-act excesses, proving that while the vehicle itself might have structural issues, the driver is entirely in control.

What is truly remarkable about this launch, however, isn't the movie itself, but what happened next. The traditional playbook for a superhero stumble is a quiet shelving of the character. Instead, we already know Alcock is locked to reprise the role in next July’s Man of Tomorrow. There has been no hasty reshuffling, no PR spin about 're-evaluating' Kara's place in the broader narrative. The schedule stands.

This represents a monumental shift in how these universes operate. The old regime would have looked at that $68 million opening weekend, panicked, and buried the character for a decade. By publicly sticking to their guns and moving forward with Alcock's Supergirl regardless of this initial misfire, the new DCU is signalling a maturity the genre desperately needs. They are treating Kara Zor-El like a permanent fixture of their world, rather than a disposable piece of IP that must earn its right to exist every Friday night. Supergirl isn't a perfect movie, but the refusal to abandon it just might be the saving grace of the franchise.