CBS Has Found Its Supergirl with Melissa Benoist
Per Deadline.com, the role of Supergirl has been cast for the upcoming CBS TV pilot of the same name. Melissa Benoist (Glee, Whiplash) is set to don the red cape for the show.
The show is being produced by Warner Bros. TV and Berlanti Productions., both of which have had success with the TV versions of The Flash and Arrow on The CW. Greg Berlanti, who is also the executive producer of TV’s The Flash and Arrow, is co-writing the pilot with Ali Adler. Supergirl reportedly went through a comprehensive, rigorous casting process. Besides Benoist, Claire Holt and Elizabeth Lail were top candidates for the role.
In regards to the premise of the series, CBS Entertainment chairwoman Nina Tassler said at the Television Critics Association press tour (via Entertainment Weekly) in January that Supergirl will be a crime procedural show. She sated: “The beauty of it is now with shows like Good Wife and Madam Secretary, you can have serialized story elements woven into a case of the week. She’s a crime solver, so she’s going to have to solve a crime. She’s going to get a bad guy.”
For the case of the show, Tassler added on the character: “[Supergirl is] a very strong, independent young woman. She’s coming into her own. She’s dealing with family issues. She’s dealing with work issues. It’s a female empowerment story. If you look at the strong female characters we have on the air, it really is resonant of that … We’re big feminists. It’s her intellect, it’s her skill, it’s her smarts. It’s all of those elements. It’s not just her strength, which she does have.”
There have been various incarnations of Supergirl over the years. The Kara Zor-El version of the character appeared in Action Comics Issue #252 in 1959. Laura Vandervoort portrayed Kara previously in the successful Smallville TV series. Helen Slater played the character onscreen with the 1984 Supergirl movie, which was a box office flop.