The DC live-action universe has had plenty of peaks and valleys since its inception, along with shakeups behind the scenes. Case in point: the shocking fate of the Batgirl movie, which was scrapped by Warner Bros. despite it being filmed and nearly completed. Chatter surrounding that cancelled flick increased due to the release of The Flash and Blue Beetle, with the latter project also originally mean to be a Max original. The Batgirl movie directors recently explained why watching The Flash made them said, and I honestly had the same thought.
There was a ton of anticipation for the scrapped DC movie ahead of its release, partly thanks to the outstanding cast of Batgirl. That includes Michael Keaton, who was reprising role as Bruce Wayne/ Batman. He also rocked the cape and cowl in Batman opposite Ezra Miller in The Flash, in what was supposed to be the second of these returns. Batgirl filmmakers Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi recently spoke to Insider, and got honest about their emotional response to seeing The Flash. As the latter filmamker put it,
We watched it and we were sad. We love director Andy Muschietti and his sister Barbara, who produced the movie. But when we watched it, we felt we could have been part of the whole thing. We didn't get the chance to show Batgirl to the world and let the audience judge for themselves. Because the audience really is our ultimate boss and should be the deciders of if something is good or bad, or if something should be seen or not.
Points were made. While there have been a number of DC shakeups recently, Batgirl is the only movie that was filmed and ultimately dropped by the studio. It doesn’t look like audiences will ever get to see Batgirl’s finished product, which seems to be what the directors are really bummed about. After all, they made that film to be watched. I’m personally a huge fan of the title character and have not-so-patiently been waiting for the Bat-family to take center stage in the DCU.
The Batgirl movie was dropped by Warner Bros. after it filming was completed, with the budget rumored to be from $70-$90 million. The movie would have seen Brendan Fraser play the villainous Firefly, and also see the return of J.K. Simmons as Comissioner Gordon. The studio will reportedly get a major tax writeoff for scrapping movie, which may prevent them from ever changing the course and releasing it. If you ask me, it’s a crime that these performances were captured and won’t be seen, especially Michael Keaton.
While both The Flash and Batgirl featured Keaton returning to the role of Batman from the Tim Burton movies, Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi maintain that they’re ultimately very different projects. Later in that same interview Adil compared them, saying:
Our movie was very different than The Flash. That has a big fantasy component, ours was more grounded. More like Tim Burton's Gotham City.
Well, my FOMO is even worse now. It sounds like Batgirl would have looked and felt straight out of Tim Burton’s orignal pair of movies. Add in Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne it sounds like this could have made that into a trilogy of its own. Give us the footage, you cowards!
The Flash is streaming now on Max, and the next DC movie hitting theaters is Aquaman 2 on December 20th. In the meantime, check out the 2023 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience.
