Where did ‘Supergirl’ go wrong?

Holy heat, Popculturology readers. I hope you’re staying cool while reading this week’s Friday newsletter. There’s a very good chance your phone is going to melt down if you’re attempting to scroll through the news while outside in 100 degree temp.

You know what is staying cool? The first manmade cell that can feed, grow and reproduce. Or, maybe it isn’t. I dunno. I’m sure cells care about the heat, right?

Anyway, enjoy the coldest summer of the rest of your life!

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Who at WB and DC thought this adaptation made sense?

Opening weekend for Supergirl was not what Warner Bros., DC Studios or fans of the character had hoped it would be. The second film in James Gunn’s DCU made its domestic debut with a disappointing $37.1 million, coming in second behind Toy Story 5.

What happened here? How did DC Studios go from the hyper hopeful Superman, which opened with $125 million last summer, to the puzzlingly dark Supergirl?

As The Hard Pass’s Mike Ryan wrote in his newsletter, it sucks to see some people celebrating the failure of Supergirl for nefarious reasons. There are always going to be people who root against a movie about a female superhero. Why would boys wanna watch a girl superhero? Gross.

I very much wanted to see Supergirl succeed. The trailers for the film had me psyched. The tease of Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El at the end of Superman carried a ton of promise, especially for fans of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, the comics that this film was based upon.

Here’s where the problems start to pile up.