‘Batgirl’ movie canceled: Why has Warner Bros decided to bury it once it’s finished?
The completed film will never be released with many wondering why. The official statement may nto show the whole truth.
The announced Batgirl film has been cancelled by Warner Bros despite the film being in post-production as well as showing test screenings. Starring Leslie Grace as the eponymous hero, the film also stars Michael Keaton reprising his role as Batman in his first appearance as the character since 1992. Brendan Fraser stars as villain Firefly in what would have been one of his first major films for more than a decade.
Fans of DC were shocked at the announcement. YouTuber AngryJoeShow, a big DC fan, said of the move: “It blows me away the incompetency at Warner Bros... they can’t even give [the fans] what we want and they can’t even handle their own characters correctly... It’s a damn shame for Leslie Grace.”
It comes as Warner Bros tries to hold its DC empire together. The production company has never been able to compete with the success of its main rival Marvel and has been struck with numerous difficulties in recent films. These include the bizarre situation with Flash actor Ezra Miller as well as the lawsuit involving Aquaman star Amber Heard.
What could be the reason for its cancellation?
The first theory on the internet was the film was poor. The New York post said the test screening were so poor that Warner Bros. decided it was impossible to release. “[Warner Bros] think an unspeakable Batgirl is going to be irredeemable,” a source told the newspaper.
The Hollywood Reporter said the budget of the film had ballooned $20 million to $90 million due to complications of shooting the film during the covid-19 pandemic. The film was not set for a cinema release and was to be on HBO Max, though even with this consideration it was reportedly decided that Batgirl did not have the “spectacle that audiences have come to expect from DC fare” and would not make back its losses.
Another factor could be the big changes at Warner Bros in the last year. Since a merger with Discovery in May 2021, new CEO David Zaslav has taken against his companies’ strategy in regards to streaming. He was quick to shut down the flagging CNN+ news network once it had been acquried. Variety reported that the company could “take a tax write-down”, citing sources who said the cancelling was “seen internally as the most financially sound way to recoup the costs (at least, on an accountant’s ledger)”.