Supergirl is on track to lose Warner Bros. $100 million. That’s the bad news. The good news—for some—is that social justice activists are happy with it because it “speaks to them.” And isn’t that the biggest problem? Hollywood started speaking primarily to them.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and no one can fault Hollywood for having them. I was part of the movement that pushed Hollywood in this direction. Even my little Netflix movie, The Summer of the Shark, was about that very thing.
As a kid, I was a movie nerd surrounded not by girls but by boys. My sister and I were unusual in that we stood in line for Star Wars, Jaws, Alien, and so on. We were in that club, but Hollywood didn’t cater to girls to make its billions—and eventually it would have to pay the piper.
Girls weren’t reliable ticket buyers then, and they still aren’t. They’ll turn out for certain movies (horror has historically been fairly reliable), but what Hollywood took away from the blockbuster era was that boys don’t just show up—they build their entire culture around the fanboy experience. For nearly the entire time my daughter (born in 1998) was growing up, Hollywood catered to boys. It was “one special boy” on repeat.
Coming out of that era, the lesson was clear: brand entire generations of millennials to respond to specific IPs and franchises, and the money will follow. Look at the fortunes made during Hollywood’s heyday, with its built-in audience that showed up reliably for every release. Why wouldn’t they? This was a whole world made just for them.
Between 2012 and 2019, the number of films produced and their domestic profits reached all-time highs. Then came the one-two punch of COVID and the Great Awokening in 2020. Hollywood has never fully recovered.
That built-in (mostly male) audience was blamed by Hollywood for the angry, righteous mobs who were furious that it had been “all boys all the time.” Trust me, I know. I wrote about it for years. I just never thought it would get quite this bad.
One thing Hollywood always understood was that people like to watch the hottest, most beautiful actors and actresses on screen. For female stars, the formula was simple: men want to sleep with them, and women want to be them. I don’t think anyone in Hollywood believes that anymore.
Megan Fox in the Transformers films remains the perfect example of eye candy designed to pull audiences in—especially boys. If they’re your biggest money-makers, why not give them what they want?
Transformers (2007) opened to $70 million and ultimately grossed over $300 million domestically. The same principle held in the 1980s. Julia Roberts built her career on two blockbusters in one year—Pretty Woman and Sleeping with the Enemy—and it was considered a big deal that a woman could do it. Why? She was hot. Men wanted her, and women wanted to be her.
ots of people, especially Gen-Z woke women, find Milly Alcock attractive. But she is not someone you could credibly say “men want to fuck her,” even if some women want to be her. The whole point of that classic appeal is that women want to be wanted. Just read any romance novel: the heroine is desired. I wasn’t pretty or hot enough to be an actress. At best, I might have had a career as a character actress. Beauty is rare, which is precisely why audiences—especially women—flock to see extremely beautiful people on screen. How else do you explain Angelina Jolie’s career?
None of this should need saying. No one should be forced into the awkward position of explaining that Alcock isn’t conventionally hot enough to draw a massive worldwide crowd, nor should anyone have to engage in a struggle session about Lupita Nyong’o only to be accused of racism. Nyong’o is beautiful, but “the most beautiful woman in the world who launched a thousand ships”? Hollywood used to simply know these things without debate.
Hollywood built an empire by attracting a core audience and catering to its tastes. For women, that has historically meant romance novels and psychological thrillers. Superhero movies, by contrast, have long targeted a different demographic—one that is decidedly not Gen-Z Women’s Studies majors from Oberlin.
I’ve seen videos of girls thrilled with Supergirl, saying they finally “feel seen.” To them, it’s the greatest movie ever. The film does have an audience, just a tiny sliver of its potential one.
@youliedhahaha #1 supergirl (2026) defender #supergirl #dc #review #comic ♬ original sound – 🦄
@iminhelle @Supergirl you will see me back in the theater next week perhaps even tomorrow #supergirl #millyalcock #superman #dcu #absolutecinema ♬ Eternal Light（renaissance choral gregorian chant a cappella polyphonic sacred) – D.ai.GO
Captain Marvel was criticized for being too “woke,” but it still did pretty well because, well, not to put too fine a point on it — Brie Larson is a little more universally appealing. Are we in Julia Roberts ‘ Pretty Woman territory? No, but it’s closer.
It isn’t fair to put it all on Alcock’s looks. The movie got not-so-great reviews on top of that and is struggling with the audience score. But the baseline has always been — at least put a really hot girl in the movie to have a fighting chance.
You know, like Gal Gadot?
It isn’t that the film doesn’t have an audience. It does. It’s just a tiny sliver of its potential audience. Hollywood now always seems to be in the mode of defending itself against its social justice critics. They seem to always be in a defensive crouch. Maybe that has made it easier for them to feel like heroes, but it’s made audiences resentful and confused. It’s like switching up the Big Mac for a veggie burger with vegan cheese.
A hot girl doesn’t guarantee a movie will be a box office success, but it is a good baseline. The weirdest thing about right now is that Hollywood either has forgotten or is deliberately breaking that fundamental rule. Does anyone think Jennifer Lawrence would have a career if she didn’t look like she does in Winter’s Bone?
True, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, without a doubt. But there is also such a thing as universal beauty. Some people might not think Lawrence is beautiful, but most people would.
The problem is that no one in Hollywood can tell the truth anymore because they are terrified of losing everything. It’s a valid fear. The cultural Left, including Hollywood, has become a totalitarian hellhole where AI and YouTube are the only escape. Taylor Sheridan dropped some truth bombs lately, and it made news. No doubt, it ruffled a few feathers, but he’s 100% right.
From the piece:
It’s a dynamic Sheridan said he refused when he signed his deal with Paramount. “This is not a democracy. There’s no committee. You’re going to pay me and you’re going to give me a bunch of money and I’m going to deliver you these shows. I’m pretty common and I’m going to tell stories that common people are going to understand. That’s most of America,” he said.
“You’re not going to win no Emmys with me, but I’m not trying to win Emmys. That’s not my goal. My goal is to sit somebody on their couch and move them, make them think, make them laugh, scare the shit out of them, excite them. That’s what I want to do, because that’s what I want from a show.”
That’s the truth. The Oscars and the Emmys are for one kind of industry, when they should be about honoring the shows and movies that reach audiences and make waves. Already, the Oscar race is being curated by pundits well paid by the studios. All of them shape what the Oscars and Emmys will be, regardless of their success. That makes the awards themselves simply a stamp of approval, but not a measure of achievement.
What they seem to want more than anything is to appear to be good people rather than to entertain audiences. That is why Supergirl bombed. Until people feel free to tell the truth, the cycle will continue.
Credit: Source link