Warner Bros. Discovery won’t be lighting the Bat-Signal for Batgirl. On Tuesday, The New York Post reported that the Batman spinoff, starring Leslie Grace in the title role of Barbara Gordon, was “shelved” and won’t release in theaters or stream on HBO Max despite a reported $70 million price tag. TheWrap and other outlets corroborated the news, which comes months after DC Comics parent company WarnerMedia merged with Discovery to create Warner Bros. Discovery under cost-cutter CEO David Zaslav. Batgirl wrapped filming in late March under Bad Boys for Life directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah from a script by DC’s Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey and The Flash screenwriter Christina Hodson.
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According to The Post, a studio source claimed Batgirl tested poorly and was considered “irredeemable” by WBD brass. With a reported budget of $70 million, sources said the budget ballooned to $90 million due to COVID costs and shutdowns.
A live-action standalone Batgirl movie has been in development since 2017. Toby Emmerich, the then president and chief content officer of Warner Bros. Pictures Group, was overseeing the spinoff with then DC Films chairmen Jon Berg and Geoff Johns. Under directing duo Adil & Bilall, the reworked project was to take place in the DC Extended Universechanged by the multiversal events of The Flash film.
With that regime out of the picture, Warner Bros. Discovery is “committed to making DC titles big theatrical event films, and Batgirl isn’t that,” TheWrap reported of the straight-to-streaming film that Emmerich considered sending to theaters. The outlet added the studio is “actively planning” on working with Adil & Bilall and Grace, who had her breakthrough role in Warner Bros. musical In the Heights.
Along with Grace in the starring role of costumed crime-fighter Barbara Gordon, Batgirl was set to star Justice League‘s J.K. Simmons as her father, Gotham City’s Commissioner Gordon. Michael Keaton, who will appear opposite Ezra Miller in The Flash, reprised his role as the “Burton-Verse” Dark Knight from the 1989 and 1992 Batman films directed by Tim Burton. The cast included Jacob Scipio, Ivory Aquino, Rebecca Front, Ethan Kai, Corey Johnson, and Brendan Fraser as the pyromaniac villain Firefly.
“My heart goes out to all the people that put so much hard work into Batgirl,” one fan tweeted in response to the news. “It infuriates me what Warner has done with your hard work.”
Wrote another: “Scrapping the Batgirl movie might be one of the worst decisions I have ever seen.” One fan weighed in, “I was really excited to see Batgirl. I hope fan voices can change this outcome. #ReleaseBatgirl.”
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