Times sure are tough being a DC fan. Whilst Marvel is out here announcing their big movies for the MCU we have Warner Brothers constantly p***ing on us, telling us it’s rain and then whilst we’re busy drying our clothes they’re f**king our mothers.
Marvel will give you X-men for Christmas whilst DC will tell you Santa’s not really and then kill your do…I can’t say that.
After a disappointing San Diego Comic-Con, a little glimmer of hope shone through when we discovered that Ben Affleck was returning to shoot some additional scenes for Aquaman 2. After months of PR disasters with Ezra Miller, it seemed like the merger may have changed some things at the studio.
However, yesterday showed us that Warner Bros always gonna Warner Bros and we now know that Batgirl has been cancelled indefinitely.
The movie was set to take place after the events of the Flash and it would see Michael Keaton return as Bruce Wayne with him taking on a new protege in Barbara Gordon.
Leslie Grace seemed super enthusiastic over the role and it seemed like young girls would have a new icon that they could look up to.
Sorry though kids, you’re stuck idolising Ezra Miller as the project is now shelved with the company flushing 90 million down the drain.
Could’ve used it to feed the homeless but nope, as we say, Warner Bros always gonna Warner Bros.
Now this story was first broken by the New York Post which said that the film was irredeemable.
They’re not exactly the best news outlet and thus when the story dropped it was quickly dismissed.
However, the Wrap followed up on it and when Variety weighed in it we had enough Variety to know that it was true.
Now, this is an unprecedented move with the movie actually almost completely finished.
Not Good Enough?
However, it’s found itself to be a victim of the Discovery Merger with the company stating that they want big blockbusters going forward. Batgirl was created to show that HBO Max could have theatrical-level events debuting on it but Discovery has gone with a focus back to theatres and they apparently don’t think that this is good enough to release in cinemas. They wanted to push back towards a theatrical experience and never had the confidence that Batgirl could hit it at that level.
Because of this we now live in a society where Morbius was released twice in theatres but Batgirl can’t even get dumped on HBO Max.
The wrap features a paragraph discussing the move and they said the following:
“The leaders of the studio determined ultimately, despite reshoots and increased budget, that the movie simply did not work, according to insiders. The new owners and management, led by CEO David Zaslav, are committed to making DC titles big theatrical event films, and “Batgirl” isn’t that. Insiders added that studio brass loves the film’s directors and star, and are actively planning to work with them soon.”
Confusing Move
This completely boggles my mind as it was purposely shot to be dropped on the streaming platform. It was later changed to get a theatrical release but the studio then dropped their comments about it not being a big event film. However, rather than releasing it at all, they’ve gone with just hiding it under the mattress like your 90s Loaded Mags with Jordan on the cover. I also can’t see the stars or directors wanting to work with the studio again and I actually think that this might put off future directors. There was a lot of controversy with Christopher Nolan stepping away from Warner Bros when they started releasing their films on HBO Max and this is way way way worse than that. Films are extremely time-consuming with most of them taking at least two years to plan, film and release. Knowing all that time could be wasted will likely make directors and creatives cautious which I think will backfire on Warner Brothers in the long run.
If a property like Batgirl that stars Michael Keaton as Batman can get shelved then it shows they’re taking no prisoners and will waste time and money if they don’t see a movie as being worth it.
Why Can’t it be Released on Streaming?
With it being complete and HBO Max being an available avenue, I just don’t understand why Warner Brothers have decided that it shouldn’t come out at all.
I’m not sure what the logistics are of just putting something on a streaming service but with almost one hundred million being spent on it you’d think they’d at least just put it on there which likely costs them very little.
Tax Purposes?
Now it’s also currently being reported that this could end up being used as a tax write off which basically means that Warner Bros will claim it as a loss.
In doing this it also means that they will never be able to release it in a monetisable way because they’ve already claimed it for tax purposes. So you can’t really be like, well this is a write-off but we also are gonna make money now hence why it can’t come out.
What Does This Mean for Other Movies?
This is also being mirrored in Scoob Holiday Haunt which now won’t come out either. Producer and Writer Tony Cervone came out and said that the movie was practically finished and that he is completely heartbroken about it.
I think we’re gonna have to start some new hashtags. I’m surprised that they aren’t releasing Batgirl even as a multiverse movie. The plan before the Discovery merger was to have multiple timelines existing so that we could get Robert Pattinson’s Batman, Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker and also the main Dark Knight in the DCEU. However, when they’re cutting movies like this off it seems like that won’t be happening.
Are you Ok Warner Bros?
I think it speaks to greater problems at Warner Brothers in that they are constantly flip-flopping and changing their minds. Now though this is a new company that has taken ownership and they are wiping the slate clean, it still doesn’t fill me with confidence that they know exactly what they’re doing. This comes off the back of them also cancelling a wonder twins movie and it seems like they might go back to the old model where we only get films from the big characters like your Batmans and Supermans.
Marvel has shown that you can make minor ones successful and I think that Discovery seems to be getting the divorce before you’ve even got married. 90 million dollars is a lot to throw away and I was really excited to see what they were gonna do with the movie, especially with Keaton coming back.
As we’ve seen from Zack Snyder’s Justice League the movie was almost completed but when Zack left they ended up reshooting 75% of it, throwing more money down the drain. They then released the Snyder Cut after spending an extra 70 million when they probably could’ve just salvaged what Zack had created, had a second unit director do pick-ups and then released that.
Warner Brothers still don’t seem like they have a concrete plan in place and when you compare them to Marvel it becomes abundantly clear how badly they’ve mishandled things.
Man Of Steel was released in 2013, almost 10 years ago and it still hasn’t had a sequel. On the Marvel side of things when we were 9 years deep we saw the release of Thor Ragnarok, completing his trilogy. They’d also done Iron Mans and Caps trilogy too and it’s just a shining example of mismanagement across the board.
Will Blue Beetle Be Cancelled?
Now, this also doesn’t fill me with a lot of confidence that the Blue Beetle movie will get released either. That movie has not finished filming but if Batgirl can get canned then he can too.
Now there is a lot of celebrating amongst the Snyder community that this shows the universe will be restored.
I think that’s the direction that Warner Brothers should go in all honesty but I think that both these kinds of films can co-exist because of the multiverse strategy that they were going with. They seem to be dead against that though and I think we’ll also see Static Shock get dropped too. They seem to just want to focus on the big names and to have them established before creating a bigger universe.
Problematic Behaviour
Now, whenever stuff like this happens you’re obviously gonna have people looking at what else they’re committed to releasing and once more Ezra Miller is trending on Twitter. Due to all the controversy surrounding them, there were calls to scrap The Flash. However, insiders reported that the studio wasn’t willing to lose 200 million dollars and that they were still going ahead with it.
However, if you can lose 90 million on a non-problematic production then I think 200 million on one with such controversy surrounding it can’t really be excused.
In general the optics surrounding the company look really bad. We have Ray Fisher who is now no longer part of The Flash because he spoke up about racism in the company. You also have a POC actress that’s had her entire movie shelved and whilst all this is going on Ezra is treating Hawaii like Grand Theft Auto.
We also have Amber Heard coming fresh off the back of her defamation lawsuit loss and as of now, her scenes are still in Aquaman 2. Johnny Depp was of course fired from Fantastic Beasts and yeah, just a mess of them consistently backing the wrong horse.
It’s led to a PR nightmare and I really do think that we have to question what’s going on with the studio.
According to Variety, the studio is still deciding what to do with the film but I think their silence speaks volumes.
Ezra is watching other movies get thrown in the trash whilst The Flash goes full steam ahead.
I know Miller still has supporters but I think the overall backlash to the movie is gonna be so big that they’re gonna wanna rethink whether it’s worth putting out. To me, Batgirl deserved a chance at least and with it being almost complete they could’ve released it, seen what the feedback was and then pivoted if it was negative.
Could This Be Positive?
Whenever something like this happens you’re of course gonna have people who see it as a good thing and I have seen comments saying that this shows Discovery is taking things seriously. If they’re willing to do this it shows they have a certain standard that the movies have to hit and that overall it might be better in the long run.
I think I stand with the majority though when I say that I’m pretty shocked by this and out of all the movies I was expecting to get canned, this definitely wasn’t one of them.
If Flash does get shelved then we might even see Keaton completely step away from being Batman and who knows, Affleck could come back fully. That’s the only real silver lining I can find in this but still, I would’ve loved to have Keaton back.
This comes days after Michael Keaton stated that he doesn’t even watch Marvel or DC movies.
So if the flash does get shelved too then he’ll have been in two comic book movies that got canned and he’ll never even know it because he doesn’t watch them anyway.
Still, though we’ll always have Morbius and for now, I wanna put it to you.
What do you think of this news?
Are you happy, are you devastated? I kinda hope someone just posts an mp4 of the whole movie and to me, it does show how antiquated the company is. This was created to push HBO max as the future seems to be streaming but discovery wanna go back to the old ways and try and save what many views as a dying way to release movies.
Comment below and let me know.
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