Supergirl (1984): the Helen Slater film, the first cult failure of the Reeve era

The genesis: the Salkinds after Superman III

In 1983, producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind release Superman III, whose results disappoint. Christopher Reeve is hesitant to return, and the producers, who hold the rights to the character and his family, look for a way to extend the franchise without him.

The idea of a film about Superman's cousin had existed since Superman II. Supergirl has been a character known to readers since 1959, without ever having been adapted. Ilya Salkind sees it as an opportunity to launch a new film series, and to reach a female audience that Kal-El's adventures ignored.

Directing is entrusted to Jeannot Szwarc, a French director based in Hollywood, known for Jaws 2 (1978) and Somewhere in Time (1980). Filming takes place at Pinewood Studios, in England, from April to August 1983, like the Superman films.

The budget is estimated at thirty-five million dollars, a significant sum for a film with no star and without Superman's name in the title. The gamble is risky, and the producers know it.

Helen Slater: a nineteen-year-old unknown

For the title role, the producers look for an unknown, as they had done with Christopher Reeve. Helen Slater, born in 1963 in New York, has just graduated from the High School of Performing Arts when she lands the role. She has never acted in a film.

Her preparation mirrors Reeve's: several months of physical training, wire-flying lessons, and the discovery of a costume inspired by the comics, with the red skirt and cape. She has said she was impressed by the size of the set and by her co-stars, all more famous than she was.

On screen, her Kara is gentle, curious, often amazed by Earth. This tone, criticized at the time as too naive, is today one of the film's most defended elements: Slater plays a teenager discovering a world, not a warrior.

Our article on Kara Zor-El retraces every version of the character; Helen Slater's remains the first, and for forty years the only one on the big screen.

The story: Argo City, the Omegahedron and Selena

The film opens in Argo City, a Kryptonian city that survived the destruction of the planet by taking refuge in another dimension. Our feature on Argo City explains the origins of this place in the comics; the film makes it a city of light, powered by an artifact, the Omegahedron.

Zaltar, an artist of the city played by Peter O'Toole, borrows the Omegahedron to show Kara how he creates. An accident sends it into space, all the way to Earth. Without it, Argo City will die. Kara sets off to retrieve it, and arrives on Earth with the powers the yellow sun gives her.

The artifact has fallen into the hands of Selena, an ambitious sorceress played by Faye Dunaway, who uses it to gain magical powers and dreams of dominating the world. Kara adopts the identity of Linda Lee, a student at a Midvale boarding school, and confronts Selena, who covets the same young man she does, the gardener Ethan.

The final act sends Kara to the Phantom Zone, where she finds Zaltar again, before a final showdown against Selena and a shadow creature. It's a fairy tale film more than a superhero film, and that's what confused the audience of 1984.

A prestigious cast: Dunaway, O'Toole, Farrow

Around Helen Slater, the Salkinds assemble a prestigious cast, as they had done with Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman in 1978. Faye Dunaway, an Oscar winner for Network, plays Selena as a grand theatrical villainess. Peter O'Toole, seven-time Oscar nominee, is Zaltar. Mia Farrow plays Alura, Kara's mother, and Simon Ward her father, Zor-El.

Peter Cook plays Nigel, the second-rate warlock who advises Selena, and Brenda Vaccaro her accomplice Bianca. Hart Bochner is Ethan, the bewitched gardener, and Maureen Teefy plays Lucy Lane, Lois's little sister and Linda's roommate.

Only one actor provides a link to the Superman films: Marc McClure, who reprises the role of Jimmy Olsen, Lucy's boyfriend. Our article on Jimmy Olsen recalls that he is the only actor to have appeared in all five films of the Salkind and Cannon era.

The music is by Jerry Goldsmith, composer ofAlien and Star Trek. His score is unanimously considered one of the best things about the film, to the point that critics have sometimes called it the only quality.

Why Christopher Reeve doesn't appear

This absence weighs heavily. The audience of 1984 expected a link to the saga, and the film offers only a Superman poster in Linda Lee's room and the character of Jimmy Olsen. The mention of Kara as "Superman's cousin" remains abstract.

Our profile of Christopher Reeve looks back at his strained relations with the producers after Richard Donner's departure, which partly explain this refusal.

In hindsight, some of the film's defenders see a quality in it: Supergirl is the only film of the era where a DC heroine carries the plot alone, without her cousin coming to save her. It would take until 2017 and Wonder Woman for cinema to do it again.

The box office failure and the critics

The film was released in the United Kingdom in July 1984 and in the United States on November 21, 1984, distributed by Tri-Star after Warner pulled out. The result was unequivocal: roughly 14 million dollars in domestic gross on a 35 million budget. Our ranking of Superman film grosses shows the extent of the drop compared to the Reeve films.

Reviews were mostly negative. The film was faulted for its slowness, its uneven special effects, a fairy tale plot ill-suited to the Superman universe, and a tone wavering between earnestness and parody. Faye Dunaway and Peter O'Toole were nominated for Razzie Awards, for worst actress and worst actor respectively.

Helen Slater, for her part, was largely spared. Many critics noted that the actress did what she could with a script that gave her little, and her freshness is often cited as the film's positive point.

The Salkinds gave up on any sequel. Their Superman cycle came to an end; the rights passed to Cannon Films, which would produce Superman IV in 1987.

Three versions of the same film

Few films exist in so many cuts. The international version, released in Europe, runs about 124 minutes. For the United States, Tri-Star demanded cuts: the American version drops to 105 minutes, removing in particular scenes in Argo City and passages with Peter Cook.

In 2000, a DVD edition revealed the director's cut, 138 minutes long, with nearly half an hour of additional scenes. It's the version the film's defenders recommend today: more coherent, closer to the fairy tale Szwarc wanted to tell.

This story of cuts partly explains the 1984 reception. American audiences saw the shortest, least clear version, and judged the film on it.

To place these versions within the saga as a whole, our list of Superman films places Supergirl between Superman III and Superman IV.

A cult status and an unexpected legacy

Forty years later, Supergirl has found its audience. Theatrical screenings, Blu-ray editions and the attachment of a generation that discovered it on home video have made the film a cult object, appreciated for what it is: a fairy tale with a cape.

Helen Slater has become a figure of the DC universe. She played Lara, Superman's mother, in Smallville, then Eliza Danvers, Kara's adoptive mother, in the series Supergirl from 2015 to 2021, alongside Melissa Benoist. The first Supergirl thus raised the second.

The film also remains a historic first: the first superheroine to headline a studio feature film. Its failure delayed the next ones by thirty years, but it paved the way.

Finally, it took until 2026 for a new Supergirl film to hit theaters, with Milly Alcock. It too disappointed at the box office. Kara Zor-El definitely has a hard time at the movies.

Conclusion

Supergirl (1984) is a film botched by its era and rehabilitated by ours. A clumsy fairy tale, a wasted prestigious cast, a butchered edit: the reasons for its failure are real. But it remains the first big-screen superheroine, a sincere Helen Slater, a Jerry Goldsmith score, and a boldness few studios have found again since.

The second Supergirl film, in 2026, adapts Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, the comic we analyze; and our profile of Calista Flockhart looks back at the series in which Helen Slater played Eliza Danvers.

Seen today in its long cut, it's better than its reputation. And it reminds us that Kara Zor-El waited forty-two years for a second film, which didn't fare any better.

To go further, our feature on what sets Supergirl apart from Superman sheds light on the character, and our article on Superman III tells the story of the film that preceded this one.