It’s been roughly four years since Batgirl’s cancellation, and the unreleased movie continues to cause problems for DC.
In August 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery made the controversial decision to cancel Batgirl, a DC movie starring Leslie Grace as the titular hero. Filming had already been completed, and the original plan was to release the movie on HBO Max. However, CEO David Zaslav opted to write off Batgirl for tax purposes rather than inject more money into the movie during post-production. Batgirl’s estimated budget was $90 million, and the tax break came to around $20 million.
On one hand, DC believed Batgirl could not be fixed. DC co-CEO Peter Safran saw Batgirl and described it as “not releasable,” saying the film would “hurt DC.” It’s a fair take to say that releasing a bad movie would have hurt the DC brand, especially at the beginning of Safran and James Gunn’s creative reset.
However, it’s hard to tell if a movie is bad if mass audiences never saw it. Plus, one could even argue that Supergirl just hurt DC more, but that’s a different topic for another day.
The Batgirl cancellation became a bigger story than the movie itself
Had DC canceled Batgirl before filming, it would’ve been much more understandable. The news still would have upset fans; However, it’s not uncommon for a movie to be announced and then never roll cameras.
Warner Bros. and DC set a terrible precedent by canceling Batgirl after filming had completed. What does that say to actors and filmmakers working for your studio if you can’t trust leadership to release your finished work to the masses?
All Batgirl has become is a headache for DC. It’s the story that won’t go away. It’s been nearly four years since the cancellation, and it’s still being talked about. During a recent interview released this month, J.K. Simmons, who played Commissioner James Gordon in Batgirl, described the entire situation as “bizarre.”
“Apparently, one test audience saw it, and you know, it wasn’t like it was a bad score from the test audience. It was a whatever business decision, obviously,” Simmons said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
Supergirl’s failure will now only fuel Batgirl’s supporters. While they are not as strong as Zack Snyder’s Justice League supporters, they do have a legitimate gripe with DC.
Originally reported by Dan Girolamo for ComingSoon.
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