Movies

Batgirl Shelving Inspires HBO Max Just Canceled Memes

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In the week since fans learned that HBO Max’s Batgirl movie was to be shelved, no company has been the subject of more scrutiny and speculation than Warner Bros. Discovery. CEO David Zaslav explained that his reasons for axing Batgirl were financial, and there have been many more rumors — some substantiated, others still up in the air — about projects that might die on the vine at WB in the coming months. And with all of that comes people looking to make a little light of the situation. So, naturally, social media has lit up with hundreds of “HBO Max just cancelled…” memes.

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They range from people using the situation to chime in on politics, to fans looking to rescue shows that actually have been cancelled. And one or two people who are going way out of their way to turn it into a “your mama” joke.

The cancellation of Batgirl has caused a profound backlash not just among fans, but among creative folks in Hollywood who are worried about what kind of standard it sets for Warner Bros. going forward. Meanwhile, the Arrowverse — for a decade the most cohesive shared universe of DC characters — is essentially over, with the announcement that The Flash will end in 2023.

The future for other projects is in doubt, too; while WB sources say Green Lantern is still alive at HBO Max, the streamer has dumped plans for a Wonder Twins movie and a planned DC anthology series titled Strange Adventures. And of course all of this follows a scattershot DC strategy that has, over the past decade, turned out as many critical and commercial misses as hits.

AT&T purchased Warner Bros. in 2018 to form WarnerMedia, with its principal focus being the launch of HBO Max, an ambitious and feature-rich streaming platform that instantly became an audience favorite despite a fairly high monthly price tag. But just four years later, AT&T sold Warner Bros. to Discovery. Now Warner Bros. Discovery seems intent on getting rid of basically everything AT&T did, including breaking down HBO Max and merging it with Discovery+ to form a bigger, more expensive monthly streaming service that will leave behind the HBO Max brand and the work and investment that went into building it up.

It’s in this context that Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav announced last week that he and former Disney executive Alan Horn plan on building a ten-year plan for DC Films that he hopes will mirror what Marvel Studios did under Kevin Feige’s leadership when they set out to tell the story of the Infinity Saga. This news was greeted with enthusiasm by quite a few people, and it’s understandable why. A management team committed to sticking to a coherent plan could have solved a lot of WB’s problems in recent years. But while we have some ideas for who might step in to be DC’s version of Kevin Feige, mostly we’re just enjoying the pure chaos energy that’s coming out of all of this.

You can see some of our favorite responses below.

Aw, ‘Nuts!

This one’s gonna get picked up by Paramount+

Don’t tell John Wick

Cancelled for Too Many Motherf—ers

Honestly, it was a rights nightmare anyway.

It’s a mouthful, but it’s worth it

*Rimshot*

Thanks, I hate it.

No, really, she’s from Canada.

Just think of the savings!