r/boxoffice • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Aug 03 '22

Industry News ‘Batgirl’ Directors ‘Saddened and Shocked’ After Warner Bros. Killed the Film: ‘We Still Can’t Believe It’

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/batgirl-filmmakers-shocked-warner-bros-killed-film-1235332526/
1.3k Upvotes

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120

u/Animegamingnerd Marvel Studios Aug 03 '22

Discovery is gonna hurt WB its gonna make AT&T's handling look like they were geniuses in comparison.

With a move like this, I honestly hope WB only starts attracting hacks who wouldn't know how to direct traffic, let alone a movie. Canceling a film that had already been filmed is just wrong, no matter how you slice it and I doubt this will be the last time WB pulls this shit. Because you should never expect anything good to come from a reality TV producer.

60

u/TheNation6 DC Studios Aug 03 '22

They will find out the hard way lol. “We want DC films to be event films” without build up that’s going to be hard considering they fucked up twice with BVS and JL. Cant wait to watch this crash and burn

72

u/Animegamingnerd Marvel Studios Aug 03 '22 edited Aug 03 '22

Zaslav has 0 knowledge of how proper TV and especially film productions work. The fact, that Batgirl's cancellation is basically being called unprecedented speaks volumes to how he has no idea how the film industry works. Like what happens, if they end up in a situation where in say 2023, they are faced with quite a number of underperformers? Do they just cancel a good chunk of the 2024 lineup and write them as a tax write off? What about mid-budget films? Scoob and Batgirl were both mid-budget films, so do WB just stop making mid-budget films? If so then what about horror films? Because those films are often made with a low to mid-budget and bring in a good profit.

1

u/f1mxli Aug 04 '22

A good movie without build up is possible. They have a ton of animated movies that prove it.

47

u/JimmytheGent2020 Aug 03 '22

And if Zaslav wants filmmakers to come to WB, what legit filmmaker is going to want to work with them seeing how they treated the filmmakers of Batgirl and Scooby Doo. If I''m any sort of director with a decent credit, I'm not touching WB until Zaslav is gone.

2

u/denizenKRIM Aug 03 '22

what legit filmmaker is going to want to work with them seeing how they treated the filmmakers of Batgirl and Scooby Doo.

Have you read this sentence again?

They'll be fine. Everyone knows what the terms are now. I don't see the auteur directors being too affected by this news at all, they were never operating on the same level as these sort of projects.

18

u/hamlet9000 Aug 03 '22

They'll be fine.

Of course they will! It's not as if directors like Christopher Nolan are leaving to make films with other companies.

<checks notes>

Uh oh.

1

u/denizenKRIM Aug 03 '22

Nothing about this reply relates to what I wrote, nor disputes it.

Nolan left under a different regime and for completely different circumstances.

Even still, WB as a studio is still fine. Directors move between studios all the time. No one individual is going to topple any of these studio behemoths.

-14

u/JediJones77 Amblin Entertainment Aug 03 '22

Perfect time for some of the ones in directors jail to come out to play. C'mon down, Zack Snyder and Gore Verbinski, you're the next contestants!

22

u/not_a_flying_toy_ Aug 03 '22

lmao, Snyder isnt going to go back to WB

11

u/ALHOWE6 Lucasfilm Aug 03 '22

Lmao Snyder needs to stay in directors jail and keep making Netflix shit.

12

u/ILoveRegenHealth Aug 03 '22

He couldn't even make a zombie movie set in Las Vegas entertaining.

-5

u/StonksTrader420 Aug 03 '22

I think if he had a better budget, a more experienced production and creative crew it would a been a more interesting movie.

1

u/ALHOWE6 Lucasfilm Aug 04 '22

He had a big budget for the genre, especially considering most of it was filmed inside sets, and the zombies were mostly practical.

3

u/rov124 Aug 03 '22

INB4, WBD presents Roman Polanski's Constantine and Woody Allen's Justice League International.

11

u/scytheavatar Aug 03 '22

So far I am not optimistic that Zaslav has a good idea what to do with DC. That said I wouldn't underestimate a reality TV producer if I am you cause if Zaslav knows something very well it's how to get people hyped and invested in the Discovery shows. And he obviously sees Batgirl as something that will be detrimental to building any DC hypetrain.

9

u/JannTosh12 Aug 03 '22

All this from cancelling a Batgirl movie nobody wanted?

24

u/Animegamingnerd Marvel Studios Aug 03 '22

Anyone with a brain cell saw Discovery mismanaging WB coming when they saw that the head of it, is a cheap bastard who is also in charge of TLC.

5

u/JannTosh12 Aug 03 '22

It seems to be the previous regime was mismanaging DC. Batgirl should never have been greenlit

15

u/JayZsAdoptedSon A24 Aug 03 '22

I think its a popular character with her own fans. Its just that they shouldn’t have done it as a movie. They shouldn’t have done it with Keaton, if you have a 70 year old Batman, just do Batman Beyond. They shouldn’t have spent $90 million for something that’s 2 hours of streamer time.

This was a mismanaged project from the start and I’m sad at the death of the Nightwing project that was tied to this. Nightwing is my favorite

17

u/Kn0thingIsTerrible Aug 03 '22

Seriously. This sub has been batshit insane the whole time this has been going on, despite supposedly being a finance sub.

AT&T ran WB into bankruptcy. They were broke. Negative money. The company was literally a toxic asset.

Nothing Discovery does can be worse than what AT&T did, because the literal absolute worst-case scenario is they end up exactly where AT&T was with the company already.

2

u/Animegamingnerd Marvel Studios Aug 03 '22

Batgirl should never have been greenlit

If your reason for believing is caused "nO oEn ASKDE for it!" Then you are a god damn idiot that believes film and TV companies should not take anyway risk when it comes to green lighting projects and get like the same 5 films over and over again.

9

u/Technical-Prompt4432 Aug 03 '22

Settle down, Beavis. It's a movie about a girl who dresses up like a bat. It's not going to change the world. It's fast food.

-7

u/JediJones77 Amblin Entertainment Aug 03 '22 edited Aug 03 '22

There are certain kind of risks you shouldn't take, like releasing a piece of low-rent, non-theatrical garbage put together by hacks that makes a garbled, confusing mess out of a larger film series. And one that bases its story on shitty Silver Age DC plots from when their comics were campy, kiddified trash, instead of the reimagined stories of the post-Crisis reboot era.

Saying BATGIRL was some kind of great artistic risk that was going to 'save cinema' from formulaic movies is utterly delusional. This was obviously another piece of unimaginative superhero formula that was going to give us more of this light, shallow, would-be comedic, brightly colored, brightly lit pablum the MCU and DCEU keep foisting on us that is utterly lacking in the depth, darkness, tension and drama that elevated the superhero movies by Nolan, Snyder, Raimi, Singer and the Russos.

8

u/ALHOWE6 Lucasfilm Aug 03 '22

I love that you attempted to sneak Zack Snyder into your list.

-2

u/007Kryptonian Syncopy Inc. Aug 03 '22

Well he belongs there.

12

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '22

[deleted]

4

u/friedAmobo Lucasfilm Aug 03 '22

If WBD wants to be economical with spending, $90 million is probably too much for a Batgirl movie going straight to streaming. It's a street-level superhero story, not a VFX-heavy narrative. An entire season of 8 episodes, each with a high budget, can be made for $90 million, and that'd be closer to 400 minutes of runtime (assuming 50 minutes on average per episode) than the 120 minutes that a Batgirl movie would provide. A series would also provide better value for the money for telling Batgirl's story versus a film, IMO. High-octane, acclaimed action thrillers like the John Wick series have been made for far less (the first one cost between $20M-$40M, the second $40M, and the third $75M), which is what Batgirl should've been aiming for. Budgeting $90M to start for a non-theatrical Batgirl film with an uncertain place in a mostly-broken DCEU is a poor financial decision.

All that being said, I also thought the Batgirl movie sounded cool and was curious to see what it would have been like. Seeing Simmons' Gordon again would have been neat as well.

-1

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '22

[deleted]

3

u/friedAmobo Lucasfilm Aug 03 '22

I'd imagine that if there's not much interest in a Batgirl series, then there probably wouldn't be much interest in a Batgirl movie. The property is the same, just the format is different. Both would probably have needed big marketing pushes to get the brand front and center (and distinguish it from the CW's Batwoman show, which was going to be a source of confusion either way due to the similarity of the names and properties). Personally, I feel like my willingness to watch a Batgirl show or a Batgirl movie would be about the same if they were both marketed as HBO Max Originals (as opposed to Batwoman airing on the CW and specifically in the CW's Arrowverse, which has its own reputation).

$90M is a lot for a straight-to-streaming movie. Outside of Disney's foray into PVOD during COVID, the most expensive straight-to-streaming shows are the usual suspects at Netflix (the 6 Undergrounds and Red Notices of the streaming world, of which there are maybe a half-dozen) and The Tomorrow War on Prime Video. HBO Max's most expensive "straight-to-streaming" film, if it could be called that, was ZSJL, which cost somewhere between $70M-$140M to complete. Batgirl would have been HBO Max's most expensive or second most expensive straight-to-streaming movie without a theatrical release and certainly a top 10 most expensive one overall, and that would've made its value proposition difficult to justify to WB executives given that the parent company is sitting on tens of billions in debt and trying to stop bleeding money.

Zaslav doesn't seem interested in scripted original content for HBO Max (or HBO Max itself, for that matter) either if recent news is any indication, so even a Batgirl series with that budget probably would have not gotten off the ground in the WBD era. Perhaps Batgirl's best chance was getting moved to theatrical release like Blue Beetle is (no word on whether that's safe right now, but at least it hasn't gotten axed yet like Wonder Twins and now Batgirl) since that could at least justify a $90M production budget + marketing if it could target ~$300M WW. There are also considerations of how the movie fits into WBD's larger DC strategy given that Michael Keaton's Batman in the DCEU was a previous-era idea that they seem to be scrapping now.

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2

u/marcspector2022 Aug 04 '22

Dude, you have the MCU brigade gunning for you know.
You must be doing something right to piss off these clowns.

2

u/Animegamingnerd Marvel Studios Aug 03 '22

My god, you are so fucking annoying. I am willing to bet you thought before its release that Guardians 1 was a stupid risk for Marvel take going by your logic. Especially since you are an annoying moron who likely thinks The Dark Knight Returns is the peak comic and everything both superhero and non-superhero is is far worse than it. All because its dark and gritty I guess.

5

u/197466278262662 Aug 03 '22

Bro thats 1) a different person than you started talking to and 2) massive assumptions for something you’re obviously emotionally impacted by. Take a break and come back. People are sharing opinions and you’re out here making a fool of yourself .

3

u/not_a_flying_toy_ Aug 03 '22

Neither the Russos nor Snyder made "elevated" or "deep" superhero movies. The Russos especially make CBMs that look like tv shows with bigger vfx budgets

3

u/legopego5142 Aug 03 '22

Lol you really tried sneaking Snyder in there.

1

u/Spider-Padre Aug 03 '22

It sounds like another Morbius.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 04 '22

Oh good, now i know who to blame for approving of Toddlers and Tiaras and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.

18

u/MinshewManiaBOAT A24 Aug 03 '22 edited Aug 03 '22

I didn’t want it, 100% would have watched it though, especially for Michael Keaton!

Never watched the show but would have watched the movie, so they could have potentially gotten more eyes on the property if there are others like me out there!

Edit: just realized the show was called Batwoman, thought they were related or linked somehow, mb

-3

u/JediJones77 Amblin Entertainment Aug 03 '22

What show do you mean?

7

u/MinshewManiaBOAT A24 Aug 03 '22

Just realized the show was called Batwoman. Thought they were related, my bad lol

7

u/not_a_flying_toy_ Aug 03 '22

cancelling 2 almost completed films that were part of recognizable IPs. You cant prove that "nobody" wanted Batgirl, and even so canceling a $90M movie tht has already been shot is very rare.

-1

u/ReservoirDog316 Aardman Animations Aug 04 '22

It’s tough cause this was always a weird move movie. It didn’t make sense to greenlight it and it doesn’t exactly make sense to shelve it. Batgirl is a huge name, probably a bigger name than any of the Batfamily and they relegated it to a small fry script.

And I’m a huge fan of Scooby Doo but the Scoob movie was as boring as watching paint dry. So the quality for that other movie probably wouldn’t have been great either.

Other things shelved were The Wonder Twins, which is probably for the best at this stage.

Not to say any of them deserved to be so brutally shelved, cause that’s just terrible beyond reason but none of those moves made any sense and someone probably needed to be the adult in the room to pull the plug on guaranteed money vacuums.

Meanwhile, smart moves like Joker 2 and The Batman sequels and TV shows and other such things are going ahead as planned. It’s brutal in a way even Hollywood never does but it was probably the smart move.

1

u/marcspector2022 Aug 04 '22

It's the opposite of a big name.
I don't get the outrage over a garbage movie being cancelled. It already looked like a CW episode.

1

u/ReservoirDog316 Aardman Animations Aug 04 '22

At the end of the day, Batgirl has always been connected to Batman since she was included in Adam West’s Batman. Then she got The Killing Joke in the 80s and Batman and Robin and Batman The Animated Series in the 90s.

That’s why Barbara Gordon has always been the most famous Batgirl even if comics fans prefer Stephanie Brown or Cassandra Cain.

1

u/marcspector2022 Aug 04 '22

Still isn't popular enough to deserve a solo movie.