SPOILER ALERT: This story contains plot details, including about the ending, from DC Studios’ “Supergirl,” now playing in theaters. It took more than five-and-a-half years, and countless hours reading comic books,

Peter Safran, co-head of DC Studios, responded to Supergirl’s box office failure.

There’s the universe itself, the saving of which has, for so often and so long, been at the heart of most of our superhero stories.