'Irredeemable' Batgirl canned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Find out why

Batgirl is an American superhero film based on the DC Comics character Barbara Gordon (Batgirl). The film was produced by Burr! Productions and DC Films and is now shelved by Warner Bros. Discovery.

Warner Bros. Discovery said on Tuesday that Batgirl won't be released despite having finished filming and being in the final stages of post-production. Despite being surprising, the move is hardly shocking because business experts had already noticed that Comic-Con 2022 passed by without any mention of the film. Leslie Grace plays the title character in this Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah-directed movie. Batgirl will instead become one of the American movies that haven't been released. The project was approved in 2021 with a focus on the HBO Max streaming service.

According to reports, the production house made the move to cut costs and focus on making movies for the theatre instead of straight-to-streaming platforms. The film, which was to see Michael Keaton reprise his role as Batman, had already exceeded $100 million in budget, according to the New York Post. The cancellation is not just a cost-cutting procedure, though.




In advance of a late 2022 release, an anonymous insider told The Washington Post that the movie had fared horribly during early test screenings. As a result, Warner Bros. felt that the movie's large budget could not be recovered and cancelled it, making it one of the most expensive cancellations ever. The movie "is going to be irredeemable," the person continued.

Back in early 2020, DC Films president Walter Hamada had laid out a plan to release four DC movies in theatres annually, with a couple more slotted for streaming platform release. Not much later, COVID-19 swooped in and derailed DC’s plan to take on Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Warner Bros.’ cost-cutting efforts will leave Batgirl fans with a bitter taste in their mouths. Fans might want a repeat of what happened with Zack Snyder’s version of Justice League with Batgirl, too. But the move seems a bit more tricky, as reports suggest that the hype for the Snyder cut was mostly generated by inauthentic accounts and bots, and the production house will be better informed this time around.

Warner Bros merged with Discovery in May 2021, and a change in leadership since then has seen several cost-cutting efforts. David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, recently oversaw the shutting down of CNN’s $300 million streaming service, CNN+, just a month after it was launched.

Batgirl joins a long list of Warner Bros. cancellations since the 2021 merger. Shows, such as Full Frontal With Samantha Bee, Chad and The Last OG have already been canned.