Worn by Leslie Grace in Barbara Gordon, the DC movie Batgirl will never be released in theaters or on HBO Max.
You will never see the movie Batgirl, worn by Leslie Grace as Barbara Gordon. The adaptation of the DC Comics heroine was nevertheless eagerly awaited, and above all almost completed: the shooting is over, the feature film is in post-production and the means to bring the heroine to the big screen are substantial: more than 90 million of dollars. But the ax has fallen, the film is officially canceled by Warner: it will not be released in theaters or on HBO Max.
” Decision not to air Batgirl reflects shift in strategy for DC Universe and HBO Max “, explains Warner in an official press release of August 3, 2022 relayed by The Hollywood Reporter. ” Leslie Grace is a talented actress and this decision does not reflect her performance. We are grateful to the directors (…). The decision would therefore be purely commercial.
Avoid commercial and critical failure through cancellation?
According to internal sources cited in particular by the American magazine The Verge, the reception by the test audience would have been particularly bad. Warner then reportedly felt that the film would be “unsalvageable”, both for public and press reception. Clearly, Warner would be afraid of bad publicity, which would affect the DC Comics Extended Universe a little more, which is already struggling to convince – where, on the other hand, darker solo works like The Batman and Joker are successful. The movie starring Leslie Grace probably didn’t match those latter two enough, while also being too disconnected from the extended universe.
The last time a DC movie featured internal artistic disagreements was for the first one. Suicide Squad. As a result, the feature film was so reworked and butchered that it was catastrophic, quickly falling into oblivion. Warner may not have wanted to retry a received whose cure would have been worse than the disease.
In addition, various sources also indicate that the new strategy no longer involves big budget films for the HBO Max platform.
But the decision remains surprising: in the field of financial losses, a commercial failure remains more acceptable than a total and absolute cancellation. Especially since the film had a cast of choice, with Leslie Grace as Barbara Gordon, as well as Michael Keaton back as Batman, JK Simmons as Jim Gordon, Brendan Fraser as the antagonist in the guise of Firefly; under the direction of Adil & Bilal (bad boys, Ms Marvel…).
The production of the film will go down in the history of Hollywood chaos. Initially piloted by Joss Whedon, he threw in the towel a year later. Then it was the turn of the budget to be revised upwards due to health protocols due to the pandemic. Despite this, the budget remains much lower than a Batman v Superman which had cost more than 150 million dollars and which is not yet considered a real success.
If fans step up, maybe Warner might change his mind, as we learned from the SnyderCut. But the latter has been the subject of a historically massive campaign and there is not much chance that the film Batgirl benefits from the same movement.