Batgirl the Warner Bros film starring Leslie Grace as Barbara Gordon, Michael Keaton, JK Simmons and Brendan Fraser won’t ever be released! Warner have confirmed.
According to the New York Post who broke the story the budget which Warner had said was $70 million had in fact exceeded 100 million dollars and film did not do well in test screenings so Warner decided to do a tax right-off. Making it one of the most expensive cancellations ever. There were initial cries that scrapping #Batgirl carried bad optics because the title role is played by a Latina.
The timings could not be worst for Batgirl co-directors Adil El Arbi and Billal Fallah who were in #Morocco for El Arbi’s wedding and had expected to return to the cutting room and continue work on the film that stars Leslie Grace, J.K. Simmons, Brendan Fraser and Michael Keaton.
Initially Warner Bros Discovery released this statement: “The decision to not release Batgirl reflects our leadership’s strategic shift as it relates to the DC universe and HBO Max. Leslie Grace is an incredibly talented actor and this decision is not a reflection of her performance. We are incredibly grateful to the filmmakers of Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt and their respective casts and we hope to collaborate with everyone again in the near future.”
WarnerBros Discovery CEO David Zaslav said “We’re not going to put a movie out unless we believe in it.” Warner said “we are committed to making DC titles big theatrical event films, and ‘BATGIRL’ isn’t that.”
Grace told E! News earlier this year that ““It’s such a thing, we haven’t seen a lot of Latino superheroes, or actors of Latin descent within the superhero world. So it was such a beautiful opportunity to be granted and a big responsibility as well.”
Leslie Grace opened up about the cancelation on her Instagram page saying
Querida familia! On the heels of the recent news about our movie “Batgirl,” I am proud of the love, hard work and intention all of our incredible cast and tireless crew put into this film over 7 months in Scotland. I feel blessed to have worked among absolute greats and forged relationships for a lifetime in the process! To every Batgirl fan – THANK YOU for the love and belief, allowing me to take on the cape and become, as Babs said best, “my own damn hero!”
#Batgirl for life! 🦇
Thousand took to social media in shock many mentioning that this would be a record for diversity for an afro Latino woman to play BatGirl. Leslie Grace, is a Dominican-American, and she is known for In the Heights and it marked WB’s third Latina to be cast in a DC superhero movie, also including Rachel Zegler joining the cast of Shazam: Fury of the God. #latinapower
