Last year, Disney's live-action remake of "Snow White," the movie whose animated predecessor put Disney on the map, bombed at the box office harder than Operation Epic Fury. The production was plagued by bad decisions, like not casting real people as the dwarves after Peter Dinklage poisoned that well, and remaking yet another animated film instead of offering something original.
But the biggest problem with that production was its lead actress, Rachel Zegler. She spent the years to the release of the film making insane political statements, attacking Trump voters, and supporting Palestine despite the fact her "Snow White" co-start, Gal Gadot, is an Israeli Jew. Jonah Platt, the son of one of the film's executive producers, slammed Zegler for its failures and said his father paid Zegler a personal visit in a “failed attempt to get the actor to delete a social media post reading ‘and always remember, free Palestine.’”
With Hollywood hemorrhaging cash on failed productions and being humiliated at the box office by guys like YouTuber Markiplier, whose independent horror film "Iron Long" turned out audiences and made a massive profit, you'd think they would have learned to keep their mouths shut.
Enter Milly Alcock, the star of the DC Universe's next comic book film, "Supergirl." Alcock looked at Zegler and said, "Hold my beer,"
#Supergirl star Milly Alcock knows she'll face backlash by "simply existing as a woman in [franchise IP]."
— Variety (@Variety) March 31, 2026
"We have become very comfortable having this weird ownership of women’s bodies. I can’t really stop them. I can only be myself."https://t.co/JDqEdZewSL pic.twitter.com/WulM1kwoTt
Here's more:
Milly Alcock told Vanity Fair in a new interview that she’s aware she’ll face backlash over leading Warner Bros. “Supergirl” simply because she’s playing a female superhero. The 25-year-old actor is no stranger to dealing with intense fandoms, having broke out as young Rhaenyra Targaryen in the first season of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” prequel series “House of the Dragon.”
“It definitely made me aware that simply existing as a woman in that space is something that people comment on,” Alcock said. “We have become very comfortable having this weird ownership of women’s bodies. I can’t really stop them. I can only be myself.”
Alcock debuted as Supergirl in a cameo in last year’s “Superman,” which launched James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new DC Universe on the big screen. This summer’s “Supergirl” is the next movie up for the franchise. Alcock told Vanity Fair that she swore off doing a big franchise after completing work on “House of the Dragon.” She changed things up considerably starring opposite Julianne Moore in Netflix’s “Sirens” limited series, but then she couldn’t find work for an entire year.
This, of course, is not true. The backlash against "Supergirl" is not because Alcock is a woman in a superhero film.
For decades, audiences and critics have widely embraced movies with strong female leads. "The Hunger Games," starring Jennifer Lawrence, grossed almost $700 million. "Wonder Woman," another DC property with Gal Gadot as the titular character, dominated the box office (we won't talk about the disastrous sequel).
Sigourney Weaver had two successful turns as Ripley in 1979's "Alien" and and 1986's "Aliens." Those films launched a franchise and skyrocketed Weaver to box office fame. That film, along with "Terminator" and "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" — another property starring a woman — defined the sci-fi action genre. Linda Hamilton, as Sarah Connor, along with Weaver, cemented the female action hero archetype.
"Mad Max: Fury Road" featured Charlize Theron as Furiosa, and she was widely considered the co-lead of the film. While the film didn't do well at the Box Office, it was nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Bree Larson's "Captain Marvel" grossed more than $1 billion at the box office, and it was the first female-led MCU film.
"Gravity," the 2013 film starring Sandra Bullock as an astronaut stranded in space, made a $200 million profit at the box office. Like "Mad Max," it was nominated for Best Picture and Bullock for Best Actress.
Scarlett Johansson starred in "Lucy," the 2014 French sci-fi action film about a woman who develops superpowers from a drug. It made over $400 million on a $40 million budget.
Other female-led films that saw critical and box office success include "Erin Brockovich," where Julia Roberts won Best Actress. Natalie Portman did the same in "Black Swan," and Uma Thurman received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress for her role in "Kill Bill: Volume 1."
No one cares that Alcock is a woman. The film, after all, is called "Supergirl" so we know what we're getting into when we watch it.
What audiences care about, and what many films — including this iteration of the DC Universe have failed to deliver on — is good stories and good movies. Alcock made a brief cameo at the end of James Gunn's "Superman," which flopped at the box office because Gunn doesn't understand Superman as a character and is incapable of directing a film that isn't an ensemble piece with a retro soundtrack. It set a bad tone for her film and the "Supergirl" trailer did little to ameliorate our concerns.
But rather than deliver a movie audiences want to watch, Alcock and those behind her movie are going down the path of politicizing the movie, demonizing the audience, and playing the "comic book fans are sexist" card once again.
So "Supergirl" will flop, and it will flop not because audiences hate women characters (I've soundly disproven that), but because we hate bad movies with mouthy lead actresses who are ignorant of history and the audience they're supposed to entertain.