Hey folks. So there's news today that DC is developing a SUPERGIRL film. The film does not have a producer team yet, but Walter Hamada is running the DC show, and word is that DC has tapped Oren Uziel (THE CLOVERFIELD PARADOX) as the scriptwriter.
SUPERGIRL: THE MOVIE bombed in theaters back in 1984, after two highly-successful SUPERMAN films and one bomb. "Supergirl" is currently doing well as a television series on The CW, and has included Supergirl's cousin, Superman, played beautifully by Tyler Hoechlin.
Over at Deadline Hollywood, Mike Fleming Jr.'s take on this is that SUPERGIRL might be a new jumping-off point to bring the JUSTICE LEAGUE heroes back to cool. They can build Supergirl's arrival on Earth with the only highly-successful project they'd had (WONDER WOMAN) as a template. If so, this could work... but I would prefer to know they are planning on solo stories in an order that is coherent and builds a universe of characters. So far, this is not a bad move, but we'll have to wait and see if they follow this up with something unearned in the movie mythology, as SUICIDE SQUAD was, or plan a new Superman film to eventually build to a JUSTICE LEAGUE sequel involving Darkseid.
DC's biggest mistake in the last five years was in leaving the decision-making up to a director, instead of a comic book professional who understands the format. Zack Snyder has great strengths as a director... his visuals are as amazing as Paul W.S. Anderson... but like Anderson, he sometimes can't see the forest for the trees, and missed crucial elements of thematic importance. Snyder's biggest sins were the reliance on imagery and association with The Dark Knight Returns. DC's was in leaving these creative decisions to one person, instead of working it out as a team of producers, planning for success, and preparing for how to pick it up if something fails to produce.
We see little sign of a new braintrust being developed to plot not just a few films, but a whole series of them, developing a constant narrative. DC's approach to superhero films is still piecemeal with a sole creative behind them. Currently, the Scorsese Joker film, THE FLASH, Matt Reeves' THE BATMAN, and the BIRDS OF PREY film are all being planned, but will these stories creatively tie into an existing continuity or just meander off in whatever direction fits the production?
Whilst one-shots are perfectly fine in the grand scheme of things, they aren't what comic book fans now expect at the cinema. Feige and Arad created something that dominates the cinema at the moment, and with DC in an even better position to produce a coherent universe than Marvel (as all of their characters are still in their hands, creatively), we can only hope better care will be taken. It's been a dark curse that had prevented the owned-by-Warner Brothers DC from the kind of success their poorer neighbors, Marvel, have enjoyed over the last ten years.
Hamada may just be what breaks this curse; given his strengths in developing the CONJURING sequels, he might just be the perfect person to guide DC into a coherent narrative. What is crucial is the ability not to make something because their marketing research suggests there is money in it, but because it will help create a greater narrative along the way.
-- Precious Roy
