K-pop girl group Le Sserafim take flight with Supergirl movie in collab single Celebration

SEOUL – Supergirl (2026), the upcoming entry in DC Studios’ rebooted superhero slate, is the latest Hollywood title to boast a K-pop tie-in.

Warner Bros. Korea said on June 2 that the movie will open in South Korean theatres on June 24, two days ahead of its North American bow and the same day as Singapore’s release.

Directed by Australian film director Craig Gillespie, it stars Australian actress Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El, Superman’s cousin and the film’s title hero, along with American actor Jason Momoa as the bounty hunter Lobo.

For a sizeable slice of viewers, though, the bigger draw might be the soundtrack. The project has been generating buzz for featuring a collaboration with K-pop girl group Le Sserafim.

The partnership was first revealed on May 31 when Source Music released a remix of Celebration, the lead single off Le Sserafim’s second album Pureflow Pt. 1, which came out on May 22.

The track keeps the original’s hook but hits harder, with faster beats and a glossier pop finish built for the big screen. Its lyrics about finding the courage to face down fear also seem to line up with Supergirl’s arc.

What was left unsaid was how the track would figure into the movie itself. In soundtrack deals, a tie-in single does not always make it into the film, and the version that does can differ from the one sold to fans.

The recent collaboration with K-pop girl group Twice on the Netflix animated feature KPop Demon Hunters (2025) is a good example. The track Takedown heard in the movie came from the story’s voice cast, while the Twice recording ran over the end credits and was listed separately on the soundtrack album.

At least a hint of an answer came late on June 1, in a promo clip Warner Bros. Korea posted to its social channels featuring the group. There, Le Sserafim members confirmed the song does play in the movie, though they stopped short of saying exactly where.

“You won’t know where it shows up, so stay till the end and keep your ears open,” Yunjin said.

The partnership lands at a time when K-pop has become a more accepted presence across major Hollywood productions.

At least until the early 2010s, the connection rarely went past a Korean track briefly playing under a scene or over the credits, as when South Korean duo TVXQ’s Rising Sun (2005) appeared in Fast & Furious (2009) or girl group Wonder Girls’ Nobody (2008) turned up in Penguins of Madagascar (2014).

By the late 2010s, the collaborations grew more woven into films. Girl group Red Velvet voiced a group of characters in Trolls World Tour (2020), which also featured the group’s singles Russian Roulette (2016) and Zimzalabim (2019). The track list for Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings (2021) drew on a roster of South Korean acts including Zion.T, DPR Live and Bibi.

The high-water mark so far is Twice’s involvement in KPop Demon Hunters. With the Oscar-winning musical movie exploding in popularity, the group’s version of Takedown charted on the Billboard Hot 100 alongside the in-film version, peaking at No. 50. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK