Supergirl 2026 trailer: Can James Gunn and Milly Alcock’s superhero conquer genre fatigue?

You’ve got to love a girl who will move heaven and earth to save her dog.

So, that’s an immediate big tick for Supergirl (Milly Alcock) who chases after villain Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts) after his henchmen poison Krypto the Superdog and she has only three days to save him with the antidote only they have.

If that’s the whole movie, we’re good with that. But, seriously, he may be a CGI dog, but if Krypto dies, we’re going to be really devastated – and pissed off.

Of course, the latest trailer of the DC superhero epic starring Alcock, an Australian, and directed by another fellow countryman, Craig Gillespie teases a little more than that.

That includes the return of Superman (David Corenswet) who implores his cousin to spend more time on Earth so she can “find her people”, and the introduction of Ruthye Marye Knoll (Eve Ridley), a young girl whose father was killed by Krem.

There’s also the anticipated debut of Jason Momoa as iconic DC anti-hero Lobo, known for his chain and hook signature weapon. He and Supergirl even exchange some quips, as you would expect.

It’s a rebirth of sorts for Momoa in the DC onscreen universe after he played Aquaman across five movies in the previous iteration. He’s the only actor, so far, to make the jump from the former DC Extended Universe to the regime under filmmaker James Gunn, who was charged with rebooting the whole shebang.

Supergirl, due for release on June 25, is the second film project of the Gunn era, following Superman last year.

Gunn’s tenure started at an interesting time for the genre, which has for years been suffering what has been termed “superhero fatigue”, characterised by waning audience interest after being bombarded with endless releases of powered people in tight costumes both on the big screen and the small.

The superhero genre had a golden run in the 2010s as DC’s rival, Marvel Studios, cranked out hit after hit, often earning box office grosses of over a billion dollars.

It culminated in the gargantuan team-up film, Avengers: Endgame, in 2019, which brought in $US2.79 billion and is still the second highest grossing film of all time (it held the number one spot for months until the original 2009 Avatar was re-released and scraped a few more dollars to reclaim pole position, make of that what you will).

With all that cash raining down, everyone wanted to be in the superhero business, but the following year, Covid hit and the cinema industry went through waves of shutdowns and had to contend with audiences hesitant to re-gather in enclosed spaces with large crowds.

It also coincided with the start of a new period for Marvel who had semi-closed the book on its first era and had started to introduce new characters, some of which did not find the same level of resonance with fans.

Couple that with a directive from former Disney boss Bob Chapek to produce reams of connected Marvel streaming shows to supercharge its then new home entertainment platform, Disney+, and audiences lost interest.

It was overwhelming, and a new Marvel release, which seemed to be every other month, felt more like homework than an event.

Across the street at DC, the movies also kept coming but few grabbed the zeitgeist or sold many tickets.

Gunn was recruited in late-2022 after the merger of WarnerBros, which controls DC rights, and Discovery to take over most of its screen projects, with exceptions for Todd Phillip’s Joker and Matt Reeves’ Batman, which were carved out of the shared narrative universe.

Superman was Gunn’s first big screen adventure under the renewed banner of DC Universe, and it was well-received by fans and critics, especially for Corenswet’s performance. Its box office of $US618 million was respectable but it wasn’t fireworks.

Supergirl will be one of the big tests year for how the superhero genre shifts to meet a cinema moment with a much lower frequency of billion-plus takings. Do the gargantuan budgets need to come down? Should they be further spaced out?

The three Marvel releases in 2025 all underwhelmed, commercially – Captain America: Brave New World ($US415 million), Thunderbolts ($US382 million) and Fantastic Four ($US521 million) all had production budgets of $180 million each, not accounting for marketing which can cost almost the same.

Marvel has already for the past couple of years course corrected due to “superhero fatigue”, including fewer releases and a semi-separation of its TV and film units to de-emphasise the interconnectedness of its streaming and cinema projects.

It also held back some of those streaming shows, including Wonder Man, the Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Ben Kingsley half-hour comedy, to give them room to breathe. It paid off for Wonder Man, which has just been, perhaps surprisingly, renewed for a second season.

Marvel will have just the one major release this year, Avengers: Doomsday, due in December, but there is a lot riding on it. To maximise its chance of success, the studio called Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans back on to the roster (both had “retired” from Marvel after Endgame in 2019), very likely at significant cost.

Its ensemble cast is gargantuan, assembling big-name stars from a range of Marvel projects including the Avengers heroes played by Paul Rudd, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Tom Hiddleston, Chris Hemsworth and Benedict Cumberbatch.

There are also those from the old Fox X-Men films (Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, Alan Cumming, James Marsden, Kelsey Grammer and Rebecca Romijin), the Fantastic Four (Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn), the Thunderbolts (Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Lewis Pullman, Hannah John-Kamen), Black Panther (Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Tenoch Huerta Mejia), plus Channing Tatum, Simu Liu and Wyatt Russell.

It is reportedly the most expensive Marvel movie to date and will likely need to make $US1 billion just to break even.

There’s also Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which will be out in July, which is a co-production between Sony and Marvel. The most recent Spider-Man film was a rare post-Covid barnstormer for the genre, earning $US1.91 billion in late-2021.

If Spider-Man 4 underwhelms, then the genre is in worse shape than we think. But if it’s a firecracker, then things are looking up.

Hollywood needs these movies to work, because if they can’t get audiences to turn up for Downey Jr and Spider-Man, then the questions around superhero fatigue are much more existential.