The movie did open at #1 but wound up only grossing $14.3 million in North America. So was it simply bad word of mouth or viewer apathy based on the lukewarm response of Superman III the year prior.
Also, the film was originally going to be Warner Bros. big summer release of the year, but they dumped to Tri-Star, who released (in America, it was released in the UK in July) it in November of '84.
The horrible word of mouth, of course. It also wasn't screened for critics ahead of time, but when the reviews were released, it was slammed hard! As you said, it opened at #1 at the box office, but even then, it was a weak opening with little competition. I didn't even get to see it when it came out because it came and left theaters so quickly!
shareA lot of things but the US versions had tons cut out of it and some important stuff that made the movie a tiny bit better and made some things more understandable, obv it had problems before release too also I think while its not perfect it still should have made more profit than it did lets face it in the early 80s there were way more movies that made more money that were worse than supergirl...I don't think timing was right for a female superhero movie.
Film was just bad. The script in particular was a completely incoherent mess.
shareHave you watched it? It should be obvious
shareI believe what happened to Supergirl what's the plot of the film was done bad all the flying sequence was done beautiful and that was one of the main reasons I enjoyed the movie I was 19 years old when it came out in 1984 I still appreciate looking at it even today on DVD on the director's cut I hope that they do releasing on Blu-ray one day.
Also just for history purposes the theater I saw this film at in Houston Texas was call AMC Shamrock 6 Theaters 215 showing
The script was terrible, but Helen Slater was heart-achingly wonderful and beautiful as Supergirl and the movie did her a disservice. And as bad as the script was, I fell totally head-over-heels in love with Helen as Supergirl and went to see it about six times in a row. I still love Helen to this day and am so glad she's still connected by being Kara's adoptive mom in the series and also doing voice work in the animated shows. Helen's portrayal as Supergirl is the only thing that keeps the movie still-watchable today.
Women superheros (wonder woman, charlies angels, the bionic woman) were leaving. This looked very 'dated' by the time it hit the screen. Like a belted sanitary napkin.
Just having a woman superhero in a screenplay about anything wasn't enough anymore. And would not be.
Today's scripts did not necessarily have the woman fighting over a man.
Because it's not a very good film. Helen Slater is lovely and ... well that's about it really. It looks cheap, feels clunky and I always thought they stole the monster from the old British film Night of the Demon https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050766/.
shareIt failed to uphold the expectation of the previous Superman movies. Although I will admit it's a guilty pleasure to watch it once in a while.
sharebc it was bad
Thats it