Batgirl: A DCEU Retrospective (Part 11.5)
Rating – 😬/10
Welcome to a little bonus entry to the DCEU Retrospective, where today we explore a movie that I have not seen. In fact, no one has seen it (unless they worked on it). As we approach the end of the DC Extended Universe, and by extension this Retrospective, I wanted to give some acknowledgment to the movie that never was, Batgirl.
The story behind Batgirl makes it an odd film to cover in the series. Slated for an exclusive release on HBO Max in December of 2022, the film had finished principal photography and was well into the post production process when in August of the same year, it was announced that the film had been cancelled. The news was a huge shock to the entire industry, as movies don’t just get cancelled, especially those so close to release. Upsettingly, the film’s directors, Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi, didn’t find out about the cancellation until it was reported by media outlets.
Why did all this happen? Well once again, the personnel in charge of overseeing the DCEU got completely shaken up. In April 2022, WarnerMedia, the parent company of Warner Bros, went into a merger with Discovery Inc., resulting in Warner Bros Discovery. David Zaslav, the CEO and president of the company, would assume control of its assets, including the DCEU.
Former DCEU overseer Walter Hamada’s plans for a more standalone style of DCEU filmmaking were shelved, as Zaslav pivoted towards more interconnectivity between releases and a 10 year plan. This was directly influenced by the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as Zaslav apparently intended to compete with them once again (the earliest fatal flaw of the DCEU never truly went away). Zaslav would even begin searching for a new creative director akin to the MCU’s Kevin Feige. But Zaslav’s main goal was to make the DCEU popular, an MCU-esque phenomenon everyone would want to see and pay attention to. The first step to achieving this? Every film would receive exclusively theatrical releases.
So where does that leave Batgirl? As part of a small slate of films made for an exclusive streaming release, it obviously wouldn’t line up with Zaslav’s new plans. Unfortunately, reports suggested that responses from test screenings were largely negative, suggesting the film was too cheap looking compared to other DCEU films to justify a theatrical release. Which is fair. It had the budget of a movie made for streaming. However, even more reports from numerous other outlets alleged that Batgirl was axed to allow WBD to write it off for a tax break, which has proven to be the popular theory.
In the end, it’s most likely that Batgirl was canned for the sake of saving money, in a deeply disrespectful manner to the efforts of the cast and crew. So what did we miss out on?
Well, using my brilliant detective skills (Google), I’ve looked at all the set photos and videos I can, and read what is allegedly the plot outline on Reddit. We would have seen Leslie Grace as the titular hero starring in a crime procedural/mob film, in which Batgirl would come to blows with villain Firefly, played by Brendan Fraser wielding actual dual flamethrowers strapped to his arms, a veteran and arsonist taking revenge on what he considered a broken system. Batgirl would have to investigate and prevent Firefly’s plan to destroy the city, apparently ending in a chase between Batgirl on a motorcycle and Firefly riding on a firetruck. It would have ended with a future conflict between Batgirl and Gotham City’s crime families.
There’s also evidence that Firefly would have been responsible for the death of Batgirl’s mother, and the film would have also seen J.K. Simmons return as Commissioner Jim Gordon. Bizarrely, the film would have also included Batman, although due to Ben Affleck’s disinterest in returning to the DCEU and a subsequent planned reset for the franchise (more on that in a few entries), the Batman here would have been played by a returning Michael Keaton. On top of this, I’ve found plenty of suggestions that the obscure villain Killer Moth would appear (and be quickly incinerated by Firefly).
Obviously, there’s still a bit of a question as to if Batgirl would have been any good. Unfortunately, I do suspect that the reports regarding the film’s low quality may have had a speck of truth to them. As unconfirmed as the plot outlines are, they describe a story that sounds fine, but unremarkable, and perhaps a little too small in scale for its own good. While I’ve read that Brendan Fraser was good, the other performances left much to be desired, and Keaton’s Batman was only there for brief scenes as a mentor figure, but without much of a dynamic with Batgirl. On top of this, even James Gunn, who while sympathetic to the cast and crew of the film, admitted that Batgirl was not releasable, and would’ve hurt the brands of DC films and the filmmakers involved with the project. By the sounds of it, Batgirl’s made for tv nature just didn’t provide enough production value to meet the expectations of a superhero movie. All that being said, there’s obviously no way to know for sure the quality of the film without seeing it. This is really just what I surmise from scattered images, a pieced together plot outline, and some word of mouth.
In hindsight, the story of Batgirl gives crucial insight to the state of the DCEU behind the scenes. It was suddenly taken over by someone all too willing to sabotage projects for the sake of some greater good. In fact, the film’s cancellation was a major motivating factor in Walter Hamada’s stepping down as president of DC films (as he too was not consulted about the decision). Both of these would ultimately foreshadow where the DC Extended Universe was headed.
While it may have not seen the light of day, and while I’m absolutely using it as a convenient way to give you historical context that I’d have to awkwardly shoehorn into Part 12 of the DCEU Retrospective, Batgirl deserves to be thought about sometimes. On one hand, it’s a stark reminder of the cruel, often profit driven nature hiding within the filmmaking industry. But more importantly, it matters to spare a thought for the directors, Bilall Fillah and Ali El Arbi, the cast, and the many filmmakers who didn’t get to share their work with the world. If Batgirl meant a lot to the people behind it, then I’d like to see it released one day, even if the quality isn’t great.. And hey, crazier things have happened. I am still the guy who was adamant that the Snyder Cut would never come out, after all.
