DC Studios released the first trailer for its major summer release, Supergirl, late last year and, in the process, broke an almost 60-year-old rule established among DC trailers. DC Studios recently launched a new era of storytelling with the DCU across animation and live-action (both film and television), following the releases of Creature Commandos, Peacemaker Season 2, and Superman. This will be followed in 2026 by Supergirl, a successor to Superman starring Milly Alcock as Superman's cousin, Kara Zor-El, but the film already looks quite different from anything DC has done before.
A notable element of Supergirl is just how much of its action takes place away from Earth. Alcock's Supergirl was first introduced in Superman as she visited the Fortress of Solitude on Earth to collect her dog, Krypto. However, when it comes to Supergirl's own movie, all of it (so far) appears to take place far away from Earth.
Every scene in Supergirl's trailer seems to take place in unfamiliar or off-world settings, which aligns with comments from DC Studios' head James Gunn that the movie would primarily be a "space adventure." Among some of the new settings audiences will experience in Supergirl are the Kryptonians' home world of Krypton (prior to its destruction), and several undisclosed planets that orbit red suns (which also subsequently remove Kara's powers).
What's unique about Supergirl's trailer is that it is the only live-action DC movie trailer to feature entirely non-Earth locations, at least since DC began making modern live-action movies in 1966 with Adam West's Batman. All of the trailers for DC's live-action movies since then have contained at least some scenes that tie the movies to Earth.
Of course, Supergirl's trailer is only a preview of a slice of the action that audiences will experience in the full movie, so that's not to say that the next DC Studios film won't have some scenes taking place on Earth; they just haven't appeared in the marketing thus far.
Supergirl adapts DC's Woman of Tomorrow comics, starring Milly Alcock as Supergirl, Eve Ridley as Ruthye, and Jason Momoa as Lobo. The film will be released in cinemas on June 26, 2026.
DC Movies That Spend the Most Time Away From Earth
Superman (1978)
Richard Donner's first Superman film, starring Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel, was largely an Earthbound affair. However, it did feature significant sequences set on Krypton, showing Superman's origins before his parents sent him to Earth, and spending time with his parents, Jor-El (Marlon Brando) and Lara (Susannah York).
Superman II
Superman's 1980 sequel focused on the return of the hero's Kryptonian brethren, Zod, Ursa, and Non, from the Phantom Zone, a parallel-dimensional prison that housed them before Krypton's destruction. Spending time on both Krypton and the Phantom Zone with Zod and his allies contributed to several off-world scenes in Superman II, although much of the movie remained set on Earth.
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
The fourth and final movie to star Christopher Reeve as Superman was released in 1987. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace saw the Man of Steel tackle many missions in outer space, starting with a Russian space station, and escalating to a superhuman battle on the Moon against Nuclear Man.
Green Lantern
Skipping forward several decades, Green Lantern was one of the first modern DC movies to set much of its action away from Earth.
While Ryan Reynolds' Hal Jordan begins as an Earth-based fighter pilot, his calling as a member of the Green Lantern Corps eventually takes him off-world to Oa, the Lanterns' homeworld. The film then intersperses its action between Earth and intergalactic settings, with Hal's final battle against Parallax taking place in outer space.
Man of Steel
Man of Steel was another largely Earth-bound affair for Superman, but Zack Snyder didn't hesitate to investigate some of the hero's off-world origins in his film.
Similar to Donner's 1978 film, Snyder's DCEU reboot, Man of Steel, spent time away from Earth, revealing the backstories of Jor-El and General Zod on Krypton, which set up Michael Shannon's villain to reappear on Earth later in the film. Snyder's Krypton was designed with a unique aesthetic that set it apart from anything else in the film.
While both Donner and Snyder's Superman origin stories revealed the hero's forebearers on Krypton, James Gunn's Superman strayed away from doing this, leaving it to Supergirl to show off Krypton's story on-screen.
