Last week the Batgirl movie lost its director when Joss Whedon announced he was stepping away from the project. Normally, this means that the studio needs to go in search of a replacement. However, that's apparently not the case, at least not right now. A source is reporting that that are no immediate plans to replace Joss Whedon as the director of Batgirl, meaning that even though the movie has been officially announced, there are no specific plans to actually make it anytime soon.
The fact that Batgirl had a writer/director put it in better shape than a lot of the DC movies that Warner Bros. has announced, but apparently, it was never actually meant to be a near-term project, and the fact that Joss Whedon has now stepped away doesn't really change anything as far as the schedule goes. The Wrap is reporting that an anonymous source has told them there are "no imminent plans" to attach a new filmmaker to the project. It turns out that there were no plans to actually make the Batgirl movie until some time after the Batman solo film, and since we have no idea when we're going to see that movie, it could be years before Batgirl even gets off the ground.
It seems that DC's plan is to handle the solo movies for the main Justice League cast, like Aquaman and The Flash first, before branching out into the secondary heroes. It's not specifically stated that the plan is to introduce Barbara Gordon in the solo Batman movie before spinning her off into her own movie, but that would certainly make sense if there are specific plans to make the movie after the next Batman film.
Of course, this news does make Joss Whedon's departure from the movie seem possibly premature. Whedon admitted that at this point he didn't have a story, but if the movie wasn't going to go into production for years, it's not like he needed one right now. He could have worked on something for months, possibly years, before stepping back, and still given a replacement plenty of time to work on their own thing.
DC's current schedule consists of Aquaman later this year with Shazam and the sequel to Wonder Woman set for 2019. After that, there is nothing with specific release dates. There are multiple projects announced including several movies that would include Harley Quinn, a possible Flashpoint film, and the always nebulous Green Lantern Corps. I guess at this point the only thing we know for sure is that we should not expect Batgirl to hit in the next couple of years as the project will shift forward, but without any active development.
