SUPERGIRL Needed Redemption, Not a Scapegoat

Published: July 2, 2026

By Hermes Devin

Dear Milly Alcock,

Blaming “Dad of four, Christian” profiles for SUPERGIRL’s bumpy ride may feel tidy, but the box office is waving a much bigger red cape. Audiences did not reject your movie because they suddenly developed an allergy to women in capes.

They rejected a story that promised vengeance and justice, then forgot that justice without redemption leaves everyone sitting in the dark with popcorn and a headache.

Let’s be clear: moviegoers have bought tickets for female superheroes. Lots of them.

WONDER WOMAN earned nearly $824 million worldwide, and CAPTAIN MARVEL soared past $1.13 billion. So, no, this is not some grand referendum on whether “Christian dads” can handle a girl superhero.

Please. The receipts already answered that question.

The real problem looks far less convenient for Hollywood’s favorite blame-the-audience script. Box Office Mojo reports that SUPERGIRL opened with $37.1 million domestically and has grossed $74.3 million worldwide so far.

Variety reported Warner Bros. and DC spent $170 million to produce the movie and about $120 million to market it. The trade said the movie could lose $100 million to $120 million during its theatrical run.

That is not a culture-war hiccup. That is a spreadsheet screaming for a cape-shaped ice pack.

Now compare that with SUPERMAN, the movie SUPERGIRL should have studied like homework. SUPERMAN earned $618.7 million worldwide after opening to $125 million domestically, and its whole engine ran on an old-fashioned idea Hollywood keeps trying to outgrow: doing the right thing still matters.

Truth, justice, mercy, sacrifice, responsibility — those words may sound dusty in a pitch meeting, but audiences keep proving they still sparkle on the big screen. Furthermore, families don’t want to see the “hero,” drunk and cursing for a proloned periods of time.

That is why Movieguide® has spent decades telling Hollywood the same thing with data, reviews and, yes, a little holy stubbornness. Movieguide® previously reported that seven of the top 10 domestic movies early in 2023 contained moral and uplifting content, along with patriotic or pro-family themes.

Movieguide® also noted that 2024’s biggest movies were driven by morally strong, uplifting stories, including INSIDE OUT 2, DUNE: PART TWO and KUNG FU PANDA 4.

In other words, this is not just a hunch from parents clutching their pearls in the minivan. It is a pattern.

Families, teens and everyday moviegoers keep rewarding stories that honor courage, sacrifice, family, friendship, forgiveness and the messy but beautiful work of becoming better people.

SUPERGIRL had room to wrestle with grief, anger and trauma. A superhero story can go dark and still lead viewers toward the light.

But when the moral lesson gets buried beneath bitterness, vengeance and a thin redemptive payoff, the audience notices. They may not use a critic’s vocabulary, but they know when a movie mistakes attitude for substance.

Milly, the crowd did not need Kara to be “squeaky-clean.” They needed her pain to mean something. They needed the journey to move from brokenness toward healing, not simply from hurt to harder punches.

A hero does not have to be perfect, but a hero does need to point somewhere higher than herself.

So, maybe the lesson from SUPERGIRL is not that conservatives hate girl superheroes. Maybe the lesson is that audiences love heroes — male, female, alien, animated, superpowered or otherwise — who remind them that goodness is still worth fighting for.

Hollywood can keep sneering at the “Dad of four, Christian” accounts if it wants, but those dads buy tickets, bring families and teach children to look for light in the stories they watch.

And honestly? That sounds less like a problem and more like the very audience a superhero movie should want to save.

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