“Bat Girl”
The filmmakers keep dreaming of a launch
Powerless and helpless directors: Adil El Arbi (left) and Bilall Fallah.
© imago images/cover images
The almost finished “Batgirl” movie is never to be released. Directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah are still hoping for a release.
“Batgirl” directors Adil El Arbi (34) and Bilall Fallah (36) continue to dream of the release of their film. “We just hope that one day the film will be released. For the actors and the crew. We are a small family,” said Belgian El Arbi in a French-language video interview.
Warner Bros. surprisingly announced in early August that the already largely wacky “Batgirl” would be canceled. The film with Leslie Grace (27) as Batgirl and Michael Keaton (70) as Batman will not be released in cinemas or on the HBO Max streaming platform.
New management was to blame
“The Warner guys told us it wasn’t a talent issue on our part, or the actress, or even the quality of the film,” Adil El Arbi says now. It was a strategic decision by the studio. “There was new management. They wanted to save some money”.
Bilall Fallah revealed his reaction to the message that reached her in the middle of the editing room. “I was shocked, I didn’t know how to react. I wanted to break things, cry […]” he reported.
Little hope for late Director’s Cut
There is still a silver lining for the “Bad Boys for Life” makers – a late director’s cut in the sense of “Zack Snyder’s Justice League”, which Warner Bros. released in 2021. A cut version that deviated from the ideas of director Zack Snyder (56) was released in cinemas in 2017.
However, the directors rate the prospect as rather low: “If [der Film] one day, there is still a lot to be done.” The hopes don’t really seem realistic at the moment: “The film cannot be released in its current form. There are no special effects, we still have to shoot some scenes.”
Incidentally, there is no possibility for the duo to complete the film on their own – apart from the legal problems that would go hand in hand with such a project. The two no longer have access to the material.