Supergirl’s Writer May Be Who Destroys The DCU

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 32 seconds ago

What do Warner Bros. executives and DC fans have in common? Simple: they are all looking for a scapegoat to blame for the box office failure of Supergirl. There are some obvious contenders here, including director Craig Gillespie (who made this cosmic road trip film look and feel excessively bland) and DC Studios CEO James Gunn, who insisted on making this the second film in the DCU. However, the internet’s preferred scapegoat right now is Ana Nogueira, the woman who wrote Supergirl. Some fans sounded the alarm when she was first hired, noting that the actor and playwright had written literally zero movies or TV shows before getting hired by James Gunn.

Still, that’s not exactly a dealbreaker. Curry Barker had not written or directed any feature films until Obsession, a movie made for $750,000 that ended up making more money than The Mandalorian and Grogu. Plus, geek icon James Gunn said that Nogueira’s script was one of the best he had ever seen, causing him to move Supergirl’s production schedule up and make it the second film in the DCU. Now that the movie is a critical and commercial dud, though, fans are worried about the DCU as a whole. That’s because Nogueira is also set to write Teen Titans and Wonder Woman, two of the most highly anticipated DC films.

An Inexperienced Screenwriter

Before writing Supergirl, Ana Nogueira established herself in Hollywood in a different way: as an actor rather than a screenwriter. She had recurring roles in popular shows like Blue Bloods and The Vampire Diaries; more recently, she had a meatier recurring role in Hightown. As a writer, she has mostly written for the theatre. When Lin-Manuel Miranda was still workshopping Hamilton, it was Nogueira who originated the insanely popular character Eliza Hamilton. She went on to write two plays of her own: Empathitrax in 2016 and Which Way to the Stage in 2022. Therefore, it’s disingenuous to say that she has no experience as a writer.

The problem, however, is how little experience she has in screenwriting. Previously, she was co-writer on a short film, We Win, in 2018. Otherwise, she has no prior writing credits for any feature films or TV shows. Previously, she submitted a horror script to Warner Bros. that never got made into a film. However, the studio was impressed enough to hire her to write a Supergirl film for the DCEU. She wrote two scripts, but neither saw the light of day before the DCEU imploded. When WB decided to move forward with Supergirl for the DCU, she was asked to pitch and ultimately hired for the job. The rest, unfortunately, is history.

One Movie Down, Two To Go

Clearly, Warner Bros. thought Ana Nogueira was a talented writer. DC Studios CEO James Gunn agreed, praising her script as one of the best he’s seen in a long time. It impressed him enough to accelerate Supergirl’s production schedule, making it the second feature film in the DCU. Even more notably, Nogueira’s script impressed him enough that she was chosen to write two more films: Teen Titans and Wonder Woman. Now that Supergirl has become a critical and commercial flop, though, fans are understandably worried that her next films will similarly underperform and effectively destroy the DCU.

That’s not guaranteed to happen, of course: Nogueira may learn from her mistakes and craft much better scripts for Wonder Woman and Teen Titans. Or maybe her writing is better than cynical fans think, and she just needs a better director than Craig Gillespie. If the studio gets nervous enough, they might give her the boot and hand those films to someone else. Bottom line? If some major changes happen, then the DCU can still be saved, especially if James Gunn’s Superman: The Man of Tomorrow is a huge hit. If no changes happen, though, Ana Nogueira may go from being a beloved Hollywood wunderkind to the woman who killed the DCU.