Lost $20 million. What happened?

I don't think it lost $20 million because unfortionatly there is no box office numbers for other countries only the amount it made in the US which does not mean much tbh as most movies even back then made a lot more in the rest of the world than in the US, I know it did very well in countries like china, I think it would have made its money back but not much profit from showings in the cinema, also there are no numbers from VHS rentals and sales and laser discs etc which still count for something.

Nothing to do with helen, the problem was a few things..mainly the script, also it lost money because the American version at the US cinemas was cut to crap, they cut out a lot of stuff that ended up not making sense when people watched the film, hence the bad American reviews from critics.

Don't get me wrong even with the more full version like here in the UK got its not a great movie and I can see why it flopped, I think another problem was the baddie, a witch seemed pretty stupid addition, specially for fans of the superman movies yes they are aliens BUT then adding witchcraft into that world made it a bit too silly, she was not a great villain either, it all comes back to being badly written and a bad script....same with kara changing disguise like magic when she walks behind the trees..that power was never explained and is pretty stupid to the viewer.

Some say its because they rushed the movie but that's not exactly true, it was ages in the making plus they spent all that time to built the massive town set here in the UK which is pretty amazing when you think about it and if you watch the making of.

The effects some people say were bad but they were not at all, for back then they were on par with anything seen in superman, the flying scenes in supergirl and the wirework was 100% better than in all the superman movies put together, they even had to create a new technique to fly her.

I think also it was not the right time for a solo female superhero movie, wrong time, bad script also there was a massive problem with getting the movie to cinemas which delayed the release also.

I do as a fan want to see the supposed 1 hrs worth of extra footage that is in the vaults where the superman too extra footage was found, specially as in the finished movie you can see that they did actually film the frozen statue scene with Selina and the female protestor.

A few of the effects did bother me though that could have been done better even for the early 80s, like the scene where she runs super fast and uses the type writer in the headmasters office, you can see they just sped up the footage because the trees outside were blowing superfast in the wind...they should have just closed the blinds so you could not see outside, same with when Selina makes the waltzers ride go round really fast the lights are blinking too fast they should have left them on constant so you it looked more believable. My main problem other than the scenes where you could see the wire harness and crane shadows on the walls when supeergirl was flying near her dormroom is when shes flying towards the camera near the end towards selinas mountain the wire rig swung her lower body to the left so she ended up flying towards the camera with her body being diagonal position and not straight..why they did not refilm that I will never know.

I do like the movie but I'm not a fanboy where I will say its perfect as its far from it.