Batgirl: The Whole Story Why DC Movie Canceled by Warner Bros.
The Batgirl movie was canceled in August 2022, after principal photography had been completed. There are a few reasons why the film was canceled, but the most likely explanation is that it did not meet the quality standards that Warner Bros. Discovery was expecting. According to a report by The New York Post, early test screenings of Batgirl had performed poorly with audiences. The report cited a “top Hollywood source” who said that the film was “a mess” and that “it was clear that the studio was not happy with the results”.
It is a long and troubled path, that of the DC Extended Universe, destined to end soon with the release of Aquaman and the lost kingdom. And among the more bizarre pages in that franchise’s history is the cancellation of Batgirl, a film that was completely removed from release calendars when it was already in post-production, underlining how far it was ready to go, in the name of the gain, David Zaslav, current CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery. An almost unprecedented move, especially considering the film’s ambitions and budget, which would have ushered in a vein of live-action DC films destined for streaming rather than theaters. But what, exactly, is the whole story of the project and what would we have seen in the film? Let’s retrace the story of Batgirl together when things started to get complicated already in the early stages of production…
Batgirl The Whole Story of Cancelation: In the Beginning, it Was Joss Whedon
The first announcements relating to a Batgirl film in the DCEU date back to March 2017, when the news came out that it would be none other than Joss Whedon, at the time a leading name in the blockbuster field after the success of two chapters of the cinematic adventures of the Avengers, as well as – but it was not known at the time – already on board at DC to revise the script (and subsequently everything else) of Justice League. A situation that did not last long, however: Whedon abandoned the project in February 2018, officially because he had problems finding the right story to bring the story of Barbara Gordon to the screen.
It’s suspected that the negative public reaction to his version of Justice League has something to do with it, with the aggravating circumstance of Wonder Woman’s characterization – both in the film and in an old script for an unmade feature film circulating on the net – which leads some to argue that he perhaps would not be the best choice for a female superhero movie. The screenplay was then entrusted to Christina Hodson, already part of the DC family since at that time she was working on The Flash, another film with difficult processing to say the least. The direction instead passes into the hands of the Belgian duo of Moroccan origin Adil El Arbi and Bilal Fallah, fresh from the success of Bad Boys For Life.
The Cast
The role of Barbara Gordon/Batgirl is entrusted to Leslie Grace, then recently entered the Warner family with her participation in the musical In the Heights, while the father of the protagonist, Commissioner James Gordon, is once again JK Simmons, former interpreter of the character in both versions of Justice League. Batman, on the other hand, does not have the face of Ben Affleck, but that of Michael Keaton, since at the time it was expected that the latter would become the new permanent interpreter of the Gotham City vigilante within the DCEU, with a function similar to that of Nick Fury in the Marvel universe (although the directors themselves at one point admitted that they didn’t know exactly what the situation of the film was in terms of continuity, suggesting that everything was a bit fluid).
Among the villains announced is the arsonist Ted Carson aka Firefly, a role for which Brendan Fraser has been cast. Precisely his presence has led fans to criticize Warner’s strategies, since if the film had been released on schedule (towards the end of 2022) it would have been possible to exploit, in terms of marketing, the professional rebirth of the acclaimed actor during the same period for his performance in The Whale.
What Would We Have Seen
The official plot of the film was never disclosed, following the definitive cancellation of the project, but in the days following the announcement, comments began to circulate, mainly on Reddit, from people who claimed to have attended test screenings. These people then saw a draft version of the film, where the ending was still missing, but broadly understood where the authors intended to go with this. The story would – presumably – take place in the timeline created by Barry Allen, which was supposed to be the new one for the DCEU, with an older Bruce Wayne mentoring the daughter of his longtime ally Jim Gordon. Barbara, for her part, would have faced various exponents of organized crime in Gotham City.
In particular, the main antagonist would have been Anthony Bressi, a mafia boss who has a minor role in the paper universe, while Firefly would have had a personal connection with Barbara since he perhaps would have killed her mother years ago (an element created specifically for the film, along the lines of the connection between the Joker and Batman in the 1989 film). Photos from the set also revealed that we would have seen Killer Moth, but there are no further details on how it would have affected the plot, nor who would have played him. In one scene the mask of Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman appeared, and there would also have been a reference to Jason Todd, the second Robin in the comics, killed by the Joker (and perhaps the one whose costume is seen in the Batcave in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice).
The Processing
Filming takes place in Glasgow, already used to represent Gotham City in other films, between November 2021 and March 2022, with plans for the feature film to debut by the end of that year on the platform then known as HBO Max (today only Max). The crew includes such veterans as director of photography John Mathieson (a frequent collaborator of Ridley Scott) and editor Martin Walsh, who has previously worked on DC Wonder Woman and Justice League. For the music was recruited Natalie Holt, who already appreciated at Marvel for the television series Loki. Through his interview, we also know that the use of the famous Batman theme created for Tim Burton’s 1989 film was planned, as Holt had asked for – and obtained – the approval of the original composer Danny Elfman.
The Cancellation
In August 2022, the news arrives that no one expected: the film, then in post-production, with incomplete special effects and some scenes still to be shot following the feedback from the test screenings, was effectively canceled, totally removed from the calendar of exits, in exchange for a tax break that will make any future commercial exploitation impossible (except for the payment of a penalty). The official reason is linked to the change of strategy for DC by Warner Bros. Discovery: the films based on the comics of the publishing house are expected for the big screen and add money to rework Batgirl – at that point already cost almost 100 million dollars – and making it into a feature film is not considered economically feasible.
Peter Safran subsequently appointed one of the two heads of DC Studios (he takes care of the administrative part, James Gunn of the creative one), pronounces himself on the matter saying that the film was not distributable because it would have damaged the DC brand. A phrase that, following the release of The Flash, has been interpreted as a reference to the increasingly chaotic situation of the internal coherence of the DCEU, with the release of the film about Barry Allen having a domino effect on other titles that at various times they were to debut either sooner or later, requiring constant changes for the sake of continuity.
The Future
In the same context in which he comments on the film’s cancellation, Safran also says that Batgirl will be part of the plans for the DC Universe, the new incarnation of DC’s audiovisual franchise, currently in the works for an expected debut in the summer of 2025, regarding the big screen, with Superman: Legacy. James Gunn, for his part, has expressed solidarity with the cast and crew for what happened, and the directors have expressed interest in collaborating with him. Leslie Grace does not rule out returning as Barbara Gordon in another project, or any case being part of the franchise with another role, but for the moment there are no concrete plans in this regard. It is rumored, given the previous statements on the matter, that Barbara could appear in The Brave and the Bold, a film that will focus on the entire Bat Family, directed by Andy Muschietti. At the moment, however, there are no concrete details in this regard, since the pre-production of the project is on standby due to the double strike of the writers and actors in the United States.
