It’s an open secret that superhero movies often represent a major gamble for the studio. Such films command huge budgets that require a correspondingly huge marketing budget. Throw in the creeping effect of superhero fatigue, and there’s no guarantee that the film will make a profit. But superhero fatigue doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it’s just the natural effect of fans comparing newer movies to what came before. It’s tough pretending Batman v. Superman is a good movie after you’ve watched The Dark Knight, for example. It doesn’t help that all of these films will inevitably be compared to the original blockbuster superhero movie: Christopher Reeve’s 1978 Superman.
Now that Supergirl is coming out next week, fans can’t help but wonder whether this cinematic outing will be able to fill the very tall boots left behind by Reeve so many years ago. As it turns out, though, the boots weren’t the part of the actor’s outfit that Supergirl director Craig Gillespie fixated on. Instead, he decided to make a very bespoke good luck charm that would honor the greatest superhero movie ever made. You see, Milly Alcock’s cape in Supergirl is made from literally the same fabric as the cape worn by Reeve in Superman!
Meet The New Cape, Same As The Old Cape
Right now, Supergirl star Milly Alcock is doing quite a bit of promotion for her upcoming movie. Recently, she appeared on Raiders of the Lost Podcast, where she dished on some behind-the-scenes details. The most fascinating thing that she mentioned was that her onscreen cape has some serious superhero pedigree. “My cape in this film was remade using material from the original Superman cape,” she said. “I think that they found there was like 16 meters of that material, so yeah, that’s in the back of my cape now.”
It’s fun to know that at least part of Supergirl’s cape is cut from the same cloth as Christopher Reeve’s cape. It’s also a fun reminder that Warner Bros. tends to hold onto material from old superhero movies for a good, long time. Sometimes, this is for practical reasons rather than sentimental ones. For example, when Christian Bale needed to do his first screen test for Batman Begins, director Christopher Nolan had him wear one of Val Kilmer’s old suits. This ended up being a real Goldilocks situation because Michael Keaton’s suit was too short and George Clooney’s had prominent nipples. Kilmer’s old sonar suit, though, was just right.
You Will Believe A Woman Can Fly
superhero costumes
Milly Alcock didn’t really elaborate on the cape story, so this might have been a decision made by any number of costuming experts, producers, and so on. But when I first heard the tale, I couldn’t help but think that director Craig Gillespie had requested this as a kind of cinematic good luck charm. By having his superhero wear something that ties his star actor to the most beloved superhero movie ever made, maybe he can avoid the most dreaded enemy of all tights-and-flights directors: superhero fatigue.
Incidentally, if Gillespie is feeling a bit superstitious, it’s likely because his boss jinxed him. A few months ago, DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran said that there’s no such thing as superhero fatigue, just “mediocre movie fatigue.” Now, with a projected opening weekend much lower than Superman ($45-$55 million compared to $125 million), it looks like Supergirl may very well be on its way to a mediocre movie box office. But a little luck can go a long way, and Milly Alcock might beat all the haters’ expectations while sharing something powerful in common with Christopher Reeve, who taught us all to believe a man can fly.
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