Supergirl: What Does the Series’ End Mean for Rumored Movie?

Tuesday kicked off the end of an era for The CW‘s Arrowverse of shows, when news broke that Supergirl will be coming to a close after its upcoming sixth season. The Melissa Benoist-led series has been a staple of the network’s programming for several years now, after initially debuting on CBS in 2015. Over the past half-decade that has followed, Supergirl’s impact on pop culture has continued to grow, with her appearing in animation, video games, and countless comics. One side effect of that has been rumors about a potential Supergirl movie, which have been floating around for several years now. Now that Supergirl‘s TV reign is set to come to an end, fans can’t help but wonder — what does this mean for a potential Supergirl movie?

While Supergirl was canonically alluded to in the main DC movie universe in Man of Steel, rumors surrounding a Supergirl movie didn’t properly kick off until 2018. Reports indicated that the hypothetical film would potentially take place in the 1970s, could potentially introduce Brainiac, and would be DC’s way of continuing the “Super” brand while Henry Cavill’s future as Superman remained unclear. In the months that followed, fans began to speculate about which female filmmaker would potentially helm the film, with The Handmaid’s Tale‘s Reed Morano being a popular suggestion. In the years that followed, there were only sporadic updates surrounding the movies’ status, with a 2019 report indicating that it would potentially begin production earlier this year, and that 22 Jump Street and The Cloverfield Paradox writer Oren Uziel would be penning the script. The most recent update, which came out in May of this year, suggested that a Supergirl movie was stalled by Cavill’s new deal as Superman, which will see him making cameos in multiple upcoming DC movies.

While a Supergirl film has never gotten beyond the speculation stage (especially as Cavill’s role as Superman has continued to evolve), the idea of seeing Kara Zor-El on the big screen has definitely intrigued some fans, while also worrying those who thought forward momentum on the movie would derail the TV show’s future. Granted, lately, there has been nothing stopping DC from having multiple iterations of a character exist at the same time, with the company’s movies and shows starting to wholeheartedly embrace a live-action multiverse. The CW’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover (which Supergirl was a part of) proved this outright, by having both the TV and movie versions of Barry Allen/The Flash (played by Grant Gustin and Ezra Miller, respectively) share the screen together. If Warner Bros. did want to bring Supergirl to the big screen, the TV iteration’s continued success wouldn’t necessarily prevent that from happening — and its conclusion doesn’t necessarily mean that a film adaptation is being fast-tracked, either. There’s also a chance that Supergirl‘s conclusion might not be the last time that Benoist ever plays the character, given the fact that she could always cameo on the new spinoff series Superman & Lois.

So, could we see a Supergirl movie hit the big screen at some point in DC’s future? Sure. But given both the ever-evolving nature of film and TV productions amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and just how beloved Benoist’s iteration of the character is, it seems plausible that DC would wait some time after Supergirl ends before fast-tracking a new take on the character. Either way, it’s safe to say that fans of the Girl of Steel have an emotional journey ahead.

Supergirl‘s final season is expected to debut sometime in 2021 on The CW.