From rumors that shows like Paradise Lost and Waller are no longer going ahead to the endless string of bad PR, the DC Universe’s miserable time shows no sign of subsiding. Well, add yet another catastrophe to this growing list: fans think Supergirl used generative AI in its pre-production.
Now, there’s no point in flogging a dead horse here, because Supergirl was nothing short of a disaster for the DCU. It failed to make significant money at the box office and it didn’t capture the imagination of the fanbase. While most people involved probably wish that everybody could just forget about its existence and move forward to the next thing, it doesn’t seem like that’s about to happen after the latest online chatter.
To give context here, DC released a behind-the-scenes video of Jason Momoa preparing for his role as Lobo in Supergirl. Was it necessary? Probably not, but some people like to see how the sausage is made. Some fans, though, noticed director Craig Gillespie’s computer screen that appears to show AI-generated imagery of Momoa as Lobo.
As Hollywood attempts to normalize AI and force it down everyone’s throat, a vocal portion of the audience has taken a defiant anti-AI stance – especially as it puts talented people out of work to save a few bucks for the billionaires running the studios. Expectedly, fans weren’t impressed when they found out that Supergirl used what looks like generative AI in any stage of its production.
On X, the outrage was particularly extra loud. One user wrote, “This actually makes me furious and like I was tricked/cheated. I want a refund for my movie ticket.”
“They couldn’t use COMIC BOOKS to conceptualize the design of Lobo?!” said another.
“We used AI to conceptualize what Jason Momoa would look like as a character that looks exactly like Jason Momoa,” a more lighthearted commentator added.
There were hundreds of comments under Discussing Film’s post (which has now been deleted) about the topic, and the majority aren’t positive at all. Some fans feel betrayed, while others consider this as another misstep by the DCU, which isn’t establishing itself to be the monumental challenger brand to the Marvel Cinematic Universe many thought it would be by now.
The behind-the-scenes video of Momoa’s preparation to become Lobo has since been removed from YouTube.
Writer James Preston Poole summarized the general sentiment that the average moviegoer has about the state of DC right now. “I say this as a fan of both Zack Snyder and James Gunn’s directorial contributions: The entire DC shared universe experiment has been an unmitigated disaster and something big needs to change,” Poole wrote on X. “None of these regimes have worked out.”
We reached out to Legacy Effects – the visual effects company that worked on Supergirl and appeared in the behind-the-scenes video – and local representatives of Warner Bros. for official comment on their position here. None has been received at the time of publication, but this article will be updated if or when we receive any feedback.
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