Batgirl Leslie Grace

Batgirl Leslie Grace
batgirl movie Warner Bros. kills off ‘Batgirl’ movie, $90 million in In a move that shocked Hollywood observers for the amount of money wasted, Warner Bros. Discovery announced Tuesday that it is shelving all plans to release the nearly finished film Batgirl, starring actress Leslie Grace.

The film had originally been planned with a $75 million budget that had rocketed up to $90 million, due to COVID-related delays. It was directed by the duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, whose credits include the 2020 Will Smith and Martin Lawrence vehicle Bad Boys for Life as well as the recent Disney+ series Ms. Marvel.

In a statement reported by multiple media sources, a Warner Bros. spokesperson wrote: “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.”

Warner Bros. has not replied to requests from NPR for comment.

Senior entertainment writer at Variety, Adam B. Vary, has been reporting on the Batgirl saga. He notes that the movie was meaningful for fans. “Not only did it have Leslie Grace — a Latina actress — leading the film, but this is work that hundreds, if not thousands, of people spent many, many months of their lives working on,” he says. “This movie also had one of the first trans characters, based on a trans character that’s in the comic books, played by a trans actor. Michael Keaton was returning to play Batman in this movie. So it really was seen by the fandom with a certain degree of excitement.”On Tuesday, Variety reported that the film had been planned under WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar and Warner Bros. CEO Ann Sarnoff, and was scheduled to be initially released on the HBO Max streaming platform. Since then, David Zaslav has come in as CEO of the newly formed Warner Bros. Discovery company, and has reversed their streaming-first corporate plans. The fate of Batgirl, according to Variety, seems to have been tied up in those strategy wars — but that jettisoning Batgirl would allow Warner Bros. Discovery to write the project off on its taxes.

“The Warner Bros. Discovery leadership decided that they would essentially write off Batgirl, that instead of releasing it on HBO Max, they could clean up their ledger — their debt ledger — by writing it off,” says Vary.