It’s been over forty years since Kara Zor-El took her first and only flight on the big screen, but that’s about to change. Next summer will see the release of Supergirl, the second film in the new DC Universe after this year’s Superman (in which the Maid of Might—as played by House of the Dragon star Milly Alcock—made a cameo). Supergirl, based on the 2021 eight-issue Tom King and Bilquis Evely limited series Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, is due in theaters on June 26, 2026 and is directed by Craig Gillespie (who helmed I, Tonya and Cruella) with a script by Ana Nogueira.
Fans got their first glimpse of the highly anticipated new superhero film today when DC Studios released the first teaser, which offered glimpses of the intergalactic setting of the film, interactions between Kara and Woman of Tomorrow character Ruthye, and a sneak peek at Jason Momoa’s Lobo. It’s a great tease, but we were hungry to learn more. Fortunately, Alcock, Gillespie and DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn were happy to shed some additional light on Kara’s new adventure.
“The reasons are various, but the main one is when Ana Nogueira wrote the Woman of Tomorrow script, it was fantastic,” shares Gunn, when asked why DC Studios is following up Superman with a movie starring his cousin. “And at DC Studios, we care most about the writing. So, we just instantly greenlit the movie.”
“I remember when the graphic novel first came out,” he continues. “Peter and I were kind of talking about taking over DC, but hadn't decided yet, and I called Peter. I said, ‘Have you seen this book by Tom King, Woman of Tomorrow?’ I told him how great it was, what an interesting take it was on Supergirl. I said, ‘You know who would be great? If you've seen that little blonde girl in House of the Dragon, I think she would be great, because it's a rock-and-roll Supergirl.’
“It was the first time I've actually read a superhero script [where] for me I could understand the tone and what to do with it,” adds Gillespie. “I was all in. Milly had already been cast, and that combination—that script with Milly, with [DC Studios] overseeing it… Because the script goes to some very dark and hard places for the character, and I felt like [they] would double down on that. 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.”
As for the star of the film, she really gravitated to Supergirl’s tougher-than-usual take on Kara Zor-El.
“Supergirl, compared to Superman, she's had a completely different upbringing,” Alcock says. “She was brought up on a planet that was dying. Everyone that she's ever known and loved is dead, so that creates a very cynical, tough... She's got a very big wall up and she's very skeptical of people. Clark is the opposite of that. He's very overly trusting. He expects the good in people. He's had a very sheltered life and he's also pretending. Kara never pretends. If she's not feeling well, you will know. She doesn't have a facade, which is really refreshing to play.”
Alcock continues, “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.”
Gunn, for one, agrees.
“That's really what spoke to me both in the book and the script,” he acknowledges. “A lot of times, for some reason, our female superhero leads are just so much more perfect than our male. Tony Stark and Star-Lord are such messes and yet that isn't always the same thing for our female superhero leads. Seeing somebody who was just so imperfect and such a mess, but just really a beautiful soul…”
“She's a rebellious spirit, Milly,” adds Gillespie. “This character, she's got a lot of armor, and she uses her humor and her cynicism to protect herself. There's a real punk quality to it, and Milly just embraced all of it. It's so effortless for her to dive into that role and do it with a certain sense of compassion underneath, but you can feel the vulnerability. You can feel the fractures in what she's struggling with, but she still has a toughness to it.”
Supergirl finds Kara celebrating her birthday with Krypto on a planet with a red sun (where, as stated in Superman, her powers don’t work, allowing her to get drunk). She then meets young Ruthye Marye Knoll, a farmer’s daughter who, in King and Evely’s 2022 Eisner Award-winning comic, seeks justice for her father’s murder.
Yet while the fundamentals may be similar, Gillespie cautions us that the film differs from the book.
“I know we keep mentioning the Tom King book, but [screenwriter Ana Nogueira] really took it to a different place as well,” he says. “So, for everybody thumbing through that Tom King novel right now, it's different.”
Considering she’s playing a super-powered visitor from another world, Alcock found herself relating a good amount to Kara Zor-El and her journey.
“Kara doesn't want to be a hero,” she says. “There's a similarity between my own personal experience being an actor and being able to empathize with having to step up to a certain role and a certain kind of external expectation because you feel like you don't deserve to. I could resonate with that. I was like, ‘She has to kind of be the hero of her own story.’ A lot of us struggle to do that and to feel worthy of that.”
“She's an anti-hero,” agrees Gillespie. “What I loved in the story is she doesn't want the role. When we meet her, she's in a very hard way, running away from it and in her own space. She gets dragged very reluctantly into the world of having to be a superhero. The way she handles that, the way that she deals with it and the way that she finds herself through that story is really fascinating and it's incomplete, which I love as well.”
“She doesn't want to be a hero,” Alcock agrees, “until the end of the movie. Then she's like, ‘I have to be this.’”
Of course, it wouldn’t be a superhero movie without plenty of action, and Gillespie promises fans won’t be disappointed, teasing some memorable fights.
“In each case, it’s always a little different, whether she has her full power, whether she has no power, if she's on a red planet,” he says. “Also, where she is in the story emotionally dictates a lot of how these fight sequences go. If she's in a very angry place, it's going to be much more frenetically messy, aggressive kind of camera work. If she's feeling in the zone, so to speak, the camera work gets more fluid. So, trying to figure out where we are in the story and how that reinforces her emotionally with the fight sequences was really fun.”
But, laughs the director, “She's very, very much trying to find every red planet she can. That’s where she’s comfortable.”
“It is fun watching the movie,” suggests Gunn, “because she's going in and out of these planets—red planets and yellow planets.”
Of course, there’s still the fact that Supergirl is coming out one year after Superman. So, how do you make sure they’re not too similar? According to Supergirl’s creative team, it’s by allowing the respective filmmakers to follow their own visions.
When [James and I] met, I said, ‘How much do I have to adhere to Superman in this world?’” shares Gillespie. “He was like, ‘We're approaching this like every one is its own graphic novel. You get to put your stamp on it and your style and your vision.’ That was incredibly exciting and I'm very grateful for that. It was very necessary for the tone of the script. They are so different in tone, and to be able to really lean into it and embrace it… Plus, the whole movie takes place in outer space. So, it's a very different world to start with. We had a completely blank slate in a way.”
And yet, the two characters are cousins and know each other well. When asked the eternal question of who would win in an arm-wrestling match, Superman or Supergirl, Alcock replies with a knowing smile, “I think Kara would. Because Clark would let her win and she wouldn't know.”
Supergirl, directed by Craig Gillespie and starring Milly Alcock, lands in theaters on June 26, 2026.
Joseph McCabe writes about comics, film and superhero history for DC.com. Follow him on Instagram at @joe_mccabe_editor.
