Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Andrew Sanford | News | July 10, 2026
I finally saw Supergirl earlier this week and, hoo-boy, it was pretty rough! Milly Alcock was fantastic, and I’m excited to see more of her, but they did not do her any favors. The whole thing felt like a half-baked excuse to make her “enter” the universe, but at least it led to a fantastic scene where she and David Corenswet are just talking (they’re both so so good). While I wish that more care and thought had been put into the film, at least it was given a chance.
In some of the post-mortems for Supergirl’s failure, there have been comparisons to Batgirl. The latter has been brought up because it actually had lower test scores than Supergirl, which may explain why WB decided to let one fly and clipped the other’s wings (new people in charge also help). But it will always be a massive “what if?” Plenty of films have had low test scores but gone on to do well. It isn’t impossible. And one of the film’s stars would have appreciated the chance.
J.K. Simmons was cast as Commissioner Gordon for Zack Snyder’s Justice League. The intent was for him to play the role across multiple films. While we’ve only seen one (okay, technically, two) of his performances as the character, he was a pretty perfect pick. He’s a fantastic actor, carries some real gravitas, and made Gordon feel like he had a deep and interesting history. And it seems like he had a pretty great time getting to don the character’s signature trench coat.
“It’s bizarre,” Simmons recently explained on Happy Sad Confused, according to Deadline. “Apparently, one test audience saw it, and you know, it wasn’t like it was a bad score from the test audience. It was a whatever business decision obviously, and then, Justice League, which was a very small part, had its own drama attached to it. But then Zack’s cut… the director’s cut came out, which the DC fans really love.” Count me among one of those people who love it (high-fiving a million angels).
Simmons went on to explain that he was excited to continue playing the character, despite a change of the guard at WB. “When Batgirl came along with Adil and Bilall, it was an exciting prospect to be part of the origin story of Batgirl,” he noted. “For those who don’t know, Commissioner Gordon’s daughter. Maybe we’ll never know… We really had a good time making it and thought it was going to be a fun superhero movie. Oh well.” He isn’t the first co-star to shake off the film’s cancellation, which is probably a lot easier when you… have a full career.
Most of the people involved in that film, like Simmons, Michael Keaton, Brendan Fraser, and the directors, Adil and Bilall, are still working quite a bit; Thriving, even. Leslie Grace, who played the titular character, has seen her film career more or less stall out since then. I wonder why! Probably shouldn’t think about the biggest difference between her and the other people I mentioned.
