Although Supergirl is only the second major movie released in the new DCU, its opening hasn’t been particularly positive. After making her debut in a brief cameo at the end of 2025’s Superman, Milly Alcock returned to lead Supergirl, the DC Universe follow-up to its majorly successful start. Despite early projections already being somewhat disappointing, Supergirl‘s opening fell short even of those tempered expectations, earning only approximately $38 million of its predicted $50 million opening weekend. While Supergirl‘s box office is certainly not a positive sign, it’s still not the most concerning aspect of the movie’s release. Instead, that dubious honor goes to the unpleasant backlash surrounding Alcock’s casting as the eponymous hero.
While Alcock herself has spoken about the negative reaction to her casting and the personal attacks on her acting ability and appearance, DCU executives have now also offered their own response to the backlash. Per The New York Times, those behind the DCU are said to be “surprised by both the ferocity of the backlash and its reach”. They also reportedly believed that “the culture had evolved past that sort of campaign.” While it’s not an express offering of support to Milly Alcock or a direct condemnation of the personal attacks on her, it does establish the studio’s stance on the backlash.
The reactions to Supergirl have been mixed across the board, with some critics praising the film, and others criticizing it. Alcock’s performance is one of the best-received aspects of the movie, while its story and action sequences in particular have failed to impress. While critical opinion might be somewhat divided, Alcock’s casting has been infinitely more so, with a very vocal subset of fans levelling harsh criticism at the actor’s appearance and ability to play the iconic DC character. As Alcock’s own comments on the nature of this criticism outline, the backlash completely misses why Supergirl is such a deceptively important movie for both the DCU and wider superhero cinema.
By making the DCU’s second-ever movie a female-led story, it places Supergirl close to the heart of the franchise, as she’s part of the foundation future stories will be built upon. DCU executives’ comments about how they believed the culture had evolved beyond such unpleasantly personal scrutiny further suggest that the backlash is unnecessary and based on severely outdated views. By making fun of Alcock’s appearance and citing it as a reason she shouldn’t have been cast in the role, Supergirl‘s detractors are only further proving why the character was chosen for such a prominent DCU role.
The consistent vocal opposition to solo superhero movies with female stars is little more than thinly veiled misogyny, with female actors subjected to a staggering amount of scrutiny in comparison to their male co-stars. Supergirl‘s important DCU role and Milly Alcock’s confident representation of female superheroes should have helped move toward wider acceptance of female-led superhero movies. Instead, the backlash has had a major negative effect on the movie’s chances of success, which ultimately only serves to discourage innovation and evolution within the superhero genre and will instead push future releases toward safer, more formulaic titles, reinforcing unfortunate stereotypes about the superhero genre and its fans.
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