Warner Bros. Cancels Release Of DC's ‘Batgirl'
Studios tend to make radical decisions in times of crisis or upheaval yet when it comes to Warner Brothers, it has made several in the last few months. With the merger with Discovery, the studio has seen a bit of a churn in terms of management, and strategy. Several executives have been laid off but, more than that, several films have been cut as well. The most surprising of these is Batgirl. Set to come out this year the release of this movie has been cancelled by Warner Brothers, as reported by Deadline. It was reported that filming of Batgirl had already been completed.
There are several reasons WB could give as to why they cancelled this movie despite finishing the film. The most widely reported is that it was not receiving good feedback from audiences following test screenings. It could also be that Warner considers the movie too expensive to not recuperate money even in theatres. The original plan at the time was to release it directly to HBO Max. Its original budget was $70m but it is being reported that this had bloated to $90m. Regardless of the reason, this is an example of Warner changing strategy with the DC properties following the merger.
Whatever the plans are, Warner Brothers Discovery continues with the purge of original content as it tries to position itself. We are in an interesting time for comic book movies and, hopefully, DC can find its path forward in the not-too-distant future.
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Source(s): Deadline, Entertainment Weekly