In a world of franchise media and blockbusters, the idea that a big-name movie is basically done and then canceled before production takes place seems absurd. But thanks to the bizarre machinations of the people who own all rights to DC Comics, fans get to see the absurd firsthand and wonder what’s next.
batgirl, directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah and starring Leslie Grace in the title role alongside Michael Keaton and Brendan Frasier, has been canceled by WB. This comes as a shock to most as the film was somewhere between 90 and 100% complete.
The concept behind the film started in 2017 when Joss Whedon pitched the project before quickly dropping out. By 2021, El Arbi and Fallah were linked with plans to appear directly on HBO Max this year. The shooting took place from last November to March. The title character is a pretty big name who hasn’t seen the big screen since fate Batman & Robin back in 1997. Fans were excited to see Batgirl get her feature film, but the film had plenty of other selling points. Michael Keaton has signed on to return to the Batman role for the first time in decades. Beloved artist Brendan Frasier would turn in a rare villain performance. JK Simmons would return as Commissioner Gordon, linking the film to the larger DCEU. There was a lot to rave about and interesting details that would attract a wide variety of fans, but the film won’t come out, and WB’s reasoning reveals some stark truths about the industry.
The studio’s official statement when asked why they would cancel an almost-finished product batgirl outside their strategy for the future of the DCEU. To paraphrase, WB is only interested in huge budgets behind tentpole blockbusters. There is no room for a $90 million action movie in their lineup. They want to release fewer movies with bigger budgets, and they can’t care less about something that doesn’t have the potential to bring in a billion dollars. This is an issue that has been ruining cinema in general for decades, but it’s nice to see one of the two biggest entertainment monopolies in the industry come out and say it. Looking back to the 80’s and 90’s, the dominant strategy was to put out a bunch of good movies and hope a few were big enough to monetize on merchandise and green-light some sequels. Today, the stated goal of Warner Bros. to destroy any creative effort that cannot reliably guarantee them a 9 or 10 figure ROI. According to this ethos, DC fans wouldn’t have Shazam, Birds of Preyor The Suicide Squad. It’s a sad day for blockbuster cinema.
There is some speculation that batgirl may have been just awful. While initial screenings were positive, more recent focus tests found that some viewers found the film disappointing. The studio that came out Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman ’84, and two versions of Justice League canceling a movie for lack of quality remains questionable at best. Very few people have seen the project, it may have been great, or it was terrible, but the quality of it is not the problem. The test screenings used unfinished cuts of the film, which the studio admitted some fans may have been expecting more. Now that no one will ever see the finished version, batgirl‘s quality is not in question. It wasn’t canceled because it was just too awful to see the light of day, it was canceled to keep up with a toxic trend sweeping the industry.
the cancellation of batgirl coincides with the similar cancellation of The Wonder Twins, proving that the first was no fluke. Warner Bros. appears to be moving away from HBO Max as a distribution platform for its DCEU content. This highlights a number of potential problems. Perhaps the streaming model is much less sustainable than it once seemed. If WB tries to send a big push back to theaters, it could be possible to take any superhero project away from their in-home viewing opportunities. It also mirrors the casework of other HBO Max staples like the hit sci-fi series Raised by wolves. It wouldn’t be out of the question to suspect that HBO Max could lose steam in general, despite big hits like peacekeeper. While HBO Max is unlikely to disappear altogether, it appears that WB is not confident in launching major projects through the streaming platform. This problem on the business side interacts with a larger problem in the way the industry influences film.
The optic of canceling the release of a new superheroine while the movie starring the wanted criminal remains on the release list is awful. Warner Bros. still releases The flashDespite star Ezra Miller’s known actions, he is currently wanted for a variety of highly unsavory crimes. The idea that Miller’s actions weren’t enough to get a movie canceled, but disappointing test screenings were enough to get scrapped batgirl raises many questions that WB cannot answer. Even beyond that, there are even more problems with this decision.
Any concept of creating art in a major studio like Warner Bros. already has a thousand obstacles to overcome. The studio mutilates the work of good directors to better fit the nine different ideas they half-formed for the direction of the greater universe. Some filmmakers are given the power to complete the entire project, while others are barely given the freedom to direct the films they are hired to do. The healthiest cinematic environment is one in which new ideas can freely appear and become popular. A project where not every project has to cost the GDP of different countries and runs the risk of being labeled a failure if it doesn’t sell a ticket to every human being on the planet.
With the cancellation of batgirl, Warner Bros. to openly admit that they are not interested in telling many new and interesting stories. They are interested in making massive blockbuster events from some big names until someone has enough money to celebrate. This is a deeply discouraging moment for one of the few studios to own the ideas fans love, and it remains to be seen how this will affect the industry.
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