‘Supergirl’ Debuts to Weak Reviews: — 49 on MC, 59% on RT: “The Worst Script I Can Remember”

As expected, Craig Gillespie’s “Supergirl” is not doing well with critics as the review embargo has finally lifted on the latest DCU film. James Gunn must be wondering what went wrong, but we saw this coming.

The tallies: 49 on Metacritic (based on 38 reviews) and 59% on Rotten Tomatoes. Those scores are not good. They might actually deter many who were on the fence from buying a ticket to this movie.

Here’s a brutal snippet from Variety’s review, written by Owen Gleiberman, that explains everything you need to know about this film.

James Gunn said he wasn’t going into production on any movie until the script was rock-solid. For that was the overriding problem with the superhero overkill era: The films had lousy scripts, which were used as grids on which to layer the visual effects. 

Gunn was right to want to take the comic-book genre back to well-structured screenwriting basics. So what has he done in his second DC outing? He’s given us a comic-book movie with the worst script I can remember.

So, who wrote this script? Ana Nogueira is credited with the screenplay. Primarily known as an actress and playwright, “Supergirl” is the feature Nogueira has officially written — she also contributed to 2017’s “Never Here,” but that’s about it. For some reason, Gunn recently hired Nogueira to also write the DCU’s upcoming “Teen Titans” and “Wonder Woman” movies.

There is some slightly glass-half-full news for “Supergirl.” Box office tracking has finally stabilized; it’s no longer trending downward and is holding its last projection of $40–$45M for its opening weekend. The bad news is that the film cost $175M.

James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DCU kicked off with decent success last year, as “Superman” grossed almost $620M worldwide. The break-even point was around $570M. Many didn’t believe Gunn when he said that was the budget, with reports pointing to an Ohio state filing that suggested $360M+ in costs. Still, Gunn was given the benefit of the doubt.

“Supergirl” will be a whole other story. Its current break-even point is around $437M, but many are now wondering if it will even pass the $200M worldwide mark by the end of its run. It’s currently tracking at the same level as “The Marvels” opening, and we all know the fate that befell that movie.