Supergirl director talks adapting the beloved DC source material: 'I didn't want to just do the comic book'

Craig Gillespie eventually read Woman of Tomorrow and even lifted a few visuals, but that was never the focus of his DCU movie When DC Studios first announced its Supergirl movie, the official title was Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, a clear signal that the film from director Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya; Cruella) would adapt the critically acclaimed 2022 comic from writer Tom King and artist Bilquis Evely. So even when that title changed to just Supergirl, fans assumed the film would still draw heavily from King's galaxy-spanning revenge-fueled saga and, even more importantly, from Evely's surreal, cosmic artwork. As it turns out, that's not exactly what happened. Instead, Gillespie tells Polygon he relied heavily on a script written by Ana Nogueira, a playwright and actor making her feature screenwriting debut with Supergirl and currently said to be working on upcoming Teen Titans and Wonder Woman movies for DCU. "I very deliberately started with the script that Ana wrote," Gillespie says, "and I put together a lot of visuals around that coming from the script, trying to make something that I would be excited about and that had this grit and flavor of the Supergirl character, Kara."