LAS VEGAS – Warner Bros. put on a show for its annual CinemaCon presentation. Highly anticipated releases such as “Dune Part Three” and “Digger” sneaked a ton of exclusive footage, and DC Studios’s major 2026 summer tentpole, “Supergirl,” joined the party. And the preview proved once again that director Craig Gillespie is often full of surprises.
READ MORE: “Dune Part Three”: Denis Villeneuve Sneaks First Seven Minutes As War Engulfs The Empire [CinemaCon]
With DC Studios co-chairperson and co-CEO Peter Safran on hand (James Gunn begins filming “Man of Tomorrow” next week), Gillespie pitched the “Superman” spin-off alongside stars Milly Alcock and Jason Momoa. The traditional pre-footage banter was pretty bland until Safran asked Momoa, who portrayed Aquaman in the previous DC era and is now the space-faring Lobo in the new DCU, who would win in a fight. Momoa found some middle ground, suggesting he thought they would just want to get drinks together, which prompted Safran to jokingly suggest an Aquaman-Lobo movie for 2031. Frankly, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea.
Alcock called the role “transformative” and sadly revealed that everyone’s favorite superdog, Krypto, is, in fact, not played by a real dog at all. Happily, her performance in the sneak spoke volumes as to why Gunn cast her as Kal-El’s frisky Kryptonian cousin. When the camera rolls, she comes alive.
The footage began with Kara heading offworld jumping on the equivalent of a space bus to a new destination. She’s annoyed to discover Ruthye (Eve Ridley), with her sword and all, has followed her on the transport. Ruthye gets in trougle with a giant alien passenger, but Kara can speak her language and mediates a misunderstanding. Another passenger kindly moves over, and Ruthye takes the seat next to her. Before they have a chance to tackle whatever conflict they have between them, the ship comes to a grinding halt. It’s been attacked by a trio of female appearing raiders looking to take the meager valuables the passengers have with them, as well as key parts of the crapy ship itself.
You might assume Kara, aka Supergirl, would easily take this crew out within a few minutes. But what the CinemaCon attendees were unaware of is that Kara has been partying on a plane with a red sun. That means she doesn’t have her powers. This allows her to get wasted, something her powers naturally negate under a yellow sun. So, in context, her passivity would make more sense. But Kara clearly can’t avoid getting in the middle of things, and after the gang’s robot spiders seemingly kill a fellow passenger, she can’t sit on the sidelines any longer.
While the thugs are distracted, Kara heads to the airlock where she begins to put on a spacesuit. The sun is coming up on the other side of the planet behind them, and if she gets enough quick exposure, she’ll power up and end this hostage situation in a snap. These criminals aren’t that dumb, however, and blow open the airlock door, throwing her into space before her helmet is on. Unconscious and starting to freeze, Kara floats through space as Ruthyie watches, horrified, from the transport. But then the sun pops over the horizon, and things take a turn.
Kara begins to rip the robot spiders off the roof of the transport ship. The raiders fire a massive laser cannon at her, blowing her away from the captives, but she soon uses her heat vision back at it (a shot seen in the latest trailer). The passengers and the raiders are stunned. This seemingly weak twentysomething humanoid has godlike powers.
The footage then segued to clips from the film, some you’ve seen in the first trailer, some you haven’t. Most memorable was the portion of Krypton securing itself in a protective shell as the planet implodes (a different interpretation from traditional comic book canon), Kara departing the remnants of that failed city in a capsule, a shot of Kal-El (David Corenswet) saying hello after finding her, and a voice-over line, “he believes in the good in everyone. I believe in the truth.”
To be fair, none of this was groundbreaking and, for the most part, Gillespie’s still sticking super close to the bright aesthetic Gunn introduced in “Superman.” That being said, the alien passenger design was inspired. So was Kara embracing her powers to take out the bad guys and other new shots from the film that demonstrated what a force Supergirl can be. When she wants to be, that is.
Is the Ruthye narrative aging down the storyline too much? Even for teenagers? Probably. But at least Gillespie and Alcock have a semi-original handle on Kara. And if Ana Nogueira’s screenplay can avoid the temptation to dive into third-act superhero movie cliches, “Supergirl” might surprise even the staunchest of naysayers. This extended tease was certainly a start.
“Supergirl” opens nationwide on June 26
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