With such a huge amount of excitement for movies like Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday, it's hard for the genre's detractors to continue waxing lyrical about "superhero fatigue."
Comic book movies are no longer the unstoppable force they were a few years ago, sure, but we're a long way off from Marvel and DC going the way of the Western.
During an interview with the Associated Press, DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran weighed in with his take on so-called superhero fatigue. It turns out, he's not a believer, though he does think that Supergirl could be exactly what the genre needs.
"I never felt that there was superhero fatigue. I felt it was mediocre movie fatigue," he explained. "You gotta try something new. You have to change the game a little bit. The essential story on which 'Supergirl' is based is something cool and original and we haven’t seen before."
The irony, of course, is that Supergirl's trailers have been widely criticised for looking unoriginal. The colour and eye-popping visuals seen in Tom King and Bilquis Evely's Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow have been swapped out for planets and character designs that have seemingly been pulled straight from Guardians of the Galaxy.
That doesn't mean Supergirl won't still soar this summer, especially as Superman has left fans eager to return to the DCU (the latest trailer confirming that David Corenswet will appear has also helped build anticipation).
Back to Safran, and his comments echo what James Gunn said about superhero fatigue in 2023:
"I think there is such a thing as superhero fatigue. I think it doesn’t have anything to do with superheroes. It has to do with the kind of stories that get to be told, and if you lose your eye on the ball, which is character. We love Superman. We love Batman. We love Iron Man. Because they’re these incredible characters that we have in our hearts. And if it becomes just a bunch of nonsense onscreen, it gets really boring."
"But I get fatigued by most spectacle films, by the grind of not having an emotionally grounded story. It doesn’t have anything to do with whether they’re superhero movies or not. If you don’t have a story at the base of it, just watching things bash each other, no matter how clever those bashing moments are, no matter how clever the designs and the VFX are, it just gets fatiguing, and I think that’s very, very real."
Finally, a new look at Supergirl has been revealed by ScreenRant today, showing the Maid of Might looking ready for a fight.
Supergirl, DC Studios' newest feature film to hit the big screen, arrives in theaters worldwide next summer from Warner Bros. Pictures, and stars Milly Alcock in the dual role of Supergirl/Kara Zor-El. Craig Gillespie directs the film from a screenplay by Ana Nogueira.
When an unexpected and ruthless adversary strikes too close to home, Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl, reluctantly joins forces with an unlikely companion on an epic, interstellar journey of vengeance and justice. Alcock stars alongside Matthias Schoenaerts, Eve Ridley, David Krumholtz, Emily Beecham, and Jason Momoa.
The film is executive produced by Nigel Gostelow, Chantal Nong Vo and Lars P. Winther. Behind the camera, Gillespie is joined by director of photography Rob Hardy, production designer Neil Lamont, editor Tatiana S. Riegel, costume designer Anna B. Sheppard, Visual Effects Supervisor Geoffrey Baumann, and composer Ramin Djawadi Junkie XL Claudia Sarne.
Supergirl arrives in theaters on June 26, 2026.