Batgirl movie footage leaked, was it bad enough to get canceled?

It was one of last week's bombshell news. Warner Bros. canceled the Batgirl movie after spending more than 90 million on it and made the decision not to even release it on HBO Max. The production company removed any responsibility from Leslie Grace, the lead actress who was to play Barbara Gordon ("Leslie Grace is an incredibly talented actor and this decision is not a reflection of her performance") but did not give much further explanation. In a terse statement, the company only said the following "The decision to not release Batgirl reflects our leadership's strategic shift as it relates to the DC universe and HBO Max."

Rumors have been flying in all directions in the last few days. From those who speak of "disastrous" first test screenings and point out that the quality of the film was quite poor (being generous), to those who say the opposite. Kevin Smith, for example, the film director behind Clerks and its multiverse, has charged Warner for the decision and assured that "I don't give a sh** if the movie was absolute f***ing dogsh** — I guarantee you that it wasn't. The two directors who directed that movie did a couple of episodes of Ms. Marvel, and it was a wonderful f***ing show and they had more money to do Batgirl than they had to do an episode of Ms. Marvel and stuff."

We will never know who is right and how the final result would be, but some of the footage shot for Batgirl has already begun to leak out and it allows us to imagine where the shots were going. What do you think? Is it bad enough to cancel the film?

The film's directors, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, have been shocked by the situation in a letter shared through their social networks. "We are saddened and shocked by the news. We still can’t believe it. While the film was far from finished, we wish that fans all over the world would have had the opportunity to see and embrace the final film themselves."

In the film, Batgirl was going to face the pyromaniac Firefly, one of the great villains of the DC factory, who was going to be played by Brendan Fraser (The Mummy, George of the Jungle). The presence of Keaton's Batman was also confirmed, but we will have to wait until the Flash movie to see him in action again.

HBO merges with Discovery+

These tumultuous movements are the result of the structural change that HBO is undergoing, in the midst of a merger with Discovery+. The platform's content will be affected and not only will there be multiple cancellations along the way, but, for example, Warner's new productions will no longer be released on HBO Max, or at least at the rate at which they are currently being released (about 45 days after their theatrical release). For the time being, we will have to go one day at a time to find out which projects are going forward and which not.