I didn’t watch the trailer for Superman (2025). As a lifelong fan of the character, I wanted to go in blind, with this being a movie that I had every intention of watching at a cinema. I loved it so much at the time that I watched it twice; that’s rare for me!
Towards the end of the film, we got to see the first of Milly Alcock’s Supergirl. Jaded from the loss of her home world, it was revealed that she travelled to party on planets orbiting red suns; whereas the yellow sun of our solar system is the source of power for Kryptonians, red suns are the opposite, weakening these alien beings. There’s a sense of desperation from the young hero, where getting drunk would be a simple, yet self-destructive, way for her to feel something, anything. It would be fair to say that this short interaction piqued my interest in her dedicated movie, releasing next year.
Over the past week, we got some new information regarding the film. A poster was released on Wednesday, with the tag: “Truth. Justice. Whatever.“ I like this more than the initial poster released just a few days after the movie, which had swapped out the “Look Up” for Superman to “Look Out”, through graffiti. The new poster gives a better sense of the titular character in the upcoming space western.
One of the most commonly known facts about Supergirl is that she had a life on Krypton before its destruction. Sent on a mission to protect her baby cousin, Kara Zor-El got delayed on course to our planet — delayed until after Kal-El had grown up, been instilled with values of goodness by his adoptive parents, built a life as Clark Kent, and revealed himself to the world as Superman. The tragedy of Superman is that he could never know his birth parents, but the tragedy of Supergirl is that she remembers her life on Krypton all too well.
On Thursday, we got a full trailer for the summer blockbuster. It opens with Krypto the Superdog knocking an open, close-to-empty bottle of what I assume to be alcohol off a record player that had been left spinning, with the needle in the air. Such a simple shot conveys who this version of Supergirl is very effectively. Supergirl, waking up with sunglasses askew on her face, hides the light of day behind the blanket of her bed. This clearly isn’t someone who readily powers up to take on the day (even if the sun here isn’t yellow) in the morning, instead shutting herself off to the world. This stands in stark contrast to the versions of the character portrayed by both Helen Slater and Melissa Benoist, with studio head James Gunn describing this version as a “rock-and-roll Supergirl”. On the topic of the flawed hero, Alcock said:
She’s so flawed, and I think we really need a flawed hero. What Supergirl represents for young women, especially, is that you can be flawed and you don’t have to be perfect in order to come to some internal self-resolution. We’re kind of thrusted upon this narrative, especially women, that you have to be perfect in every aspect of your life. Kara is someone who so beautifully leans into her flaws. I think that’s really special.
It’s this contrast to Superman that excites me not just for the fresh dynamic between the two cousins further down the line, but for the tone of her movie, which comes less than a year after Superman’s. Where Superman struggled to give a strong character arc to its hopeful hero, Supergirl (2026) will lend itself naturally to the growth of its protagonist. The record plays Blondie’s “Call Me” and launches into the montage for the rest of the trailer.
We see a scene that takes place either in late 2022 or early 2023, placing at least part of the film before the events of Superman, which took place in 2025. The director card presents us with the name Craig Gillespie, which is a welcome change from the DCU projects to date, the majority of which were directed, or written, by James Gunn.
The trailer shows the destruction of Krypton. Particularly noteworthy is that Krypton is not home to the classic arctic conditions of Richard Donner’s 1978 movie, but has a more modern look with skyscrapers in a bright sky and what looks like naturally liquid water. However, as we saw in Superman (2025), the white clothes remained, as opposed to the green apparel of the comics. Ultimately, I wasn’t happy with Gunn’s modification to the Kryptonian heritage of Superman, giving him, via his parents, the original goal of spreading his lineage through taking many wives. However, I would be interested to find out more about what really happened on Krypton in its final days, and from the perspective of his older (at the time) female cousin.
Of all things, the following action scenes felt reminiscent of Aquaman. Like Aquaman, there is a strong visual style that stands apart from what we have seen previously in the universe this is connected to. “Unlikely hero” is a phrase that springs to mind.
Speaking of which, we get our first look at Jason Momoa as Lobo, an interstellar bounty hunter. Momoa has spoken about his love of the character in the past, calling it the “perfect role”. For a bit more of the character, I’d recommend watching the double episode of Superman: The Animated Series titled “The Main Man”.
In an interview with DC’s home website, Gillespie spoke about action sequences taking place on different planets with different suns, informing whether Supergirl was powered or not. Camera work will be dependent on Kara’s emotional state, and we see a variety of emotions on display from Alcock throughout the trailer. It will certainly be interesting to see how a character with the same powers as Superman is shown on screen, with a different director at the helm. Speaking on Alcock’s performance, director Gillespie said:
Milly, tonally, was perfect for it. She’s got this vulnerability and this humor and this accessibility, but the strength and this seraphic nature that’s built into her DNA, that was perfect. The whole combination.
The trailer ends with a couple of seconds to show the comic book that the movie is based on. I would have appreciated this being shown on screen for just a little longer, as it could be easy to miss, but this acknowledgement of the source material is something that I love as a fan of the comic book medium. Since the beginning, the DCU has clearly been made by people with a love of the source material, sharing influences and inspirations where appropriate.
This is a book that has sat on my shelf, but I am eager to give it a read before watching the film. Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow was nominated for the prestigious Eisner Awards, under the category of Best Limited Series in 2022. Despite this, director Gillespie has confirmed that the film isn’t a one-to-one adaptation of the book. For one, Lobo is not in the original material. Unfortunately, what is shown in the trailer is not nearly as vibrant as the original comic book the film is based on, which feels like it could be a big misstep, though it does stand apart from Superman and fits what we have seen of Supergirl on-screen.
As a final touch, I love how the family crest for Supergirl is itself damaged as though from a battle; it’s not clean like that of Superman.
With a distinctive new take on the character on-screen, and with a different director flying the ship, I’m excited to watch Supergirl at a cinema on June 26th, 2026.