"Batgirl" Film Was Nearly Completed and Cost Between $70 and $100 Million, But Test Audiences Found It "Unspeakable"

It had finished principle photography and was in post-production, where special effects and music and sound effects and editing would be completed.

And also, mostly likely, reshoots. Especially with big "blockbuster" movies, and especially with big bad "blockbuster" movies, you probably need a two or more (maybe even six) weeks of reshoots with the cast and crew, which can get expensive.

I heard a guy estimate that post-production costs could run maybe $80 million more.

And then advertising and prints could cost, well, a hundred or two hundred million, i they were going to run it in theaters.

But a source said the film was "unspeakable" and "irredeemable" -- and likely to damage the DC Brand, which is already in the toilet.

So Zaslev is putting a completed (or near-completed) film in the vault, forever.

Andrej from Midnight's Edge thinks that the "poor test screening reaction" story might be a cover story for what's really going on, but let's deal with the cover story for now.

The DC Comics film "Batgirl" will be completely "shelved" by Warner Bros., a top Hollywood source told The Post.

That means it won't hit theaters or the streaming service HBO Max. Fans will not see it.

The reportedly $70 million movie (the source said the budget was actually more than $100 million), which was doing test screenings for audiences in anticipation of a late 2022 debut, would rank among the most expensive cinematic castoffs ever.

Those tests were said to be so poorly received by moviegoers that the studio decided to cut its losses and run, for the sake of the brand's future. It's a DC disaster.

"They think an unspeakable 'Batgirl' is going to be irredeemable," the source said.

The Post has reached out to Warner Bros. for comment.

By the way, there was yet another race-swap in the casting, and another Gingercide.

Barbara "Batgirl" Gordon, a white redhead in the comics, was made into a black (or half-black) girl.

If you haven't heard of "Gingercide," it refers to Hollywood's weird insistence on race-swapping every single ginger in the comics to a black actor or sometimes a Hispanic one. Disney does this too (The Little Mermaid).

I sort of can explain this: In comic books, "redhead" is usually "the other other other color" to distinguish from the "main color" (brown hair) and "the other other color" (black hair) and "the other other color" (blond hair). I guess maybe Hollywood figures if red hair is just used in comic books to indicate "some other color besides the usual ones," it's a fair move to change all the redheads to black or Hispanic.

The gingers -- who are a real minority, of course -- can't be happy about this, though.

Where's their representation?

...

Shelving a multimillion-dollar effort would not be unusual for Zaslav, a ruthless cost-cutter. Remember, he's the same guy who gave the $300 million streaming service CNN+ the ax just days after its splashy launch because it didn't snare enough subscribers.

The budget-conscious CEO, according to Variety, has split WB into multiple segments, including a reorganized "DC-based film production" group.

With that in mind, WB is said to be searching for a head honcho to run the flailing DC Extended Universe and whip it into coherent shape, like Kevin Feige did with the far more successful Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is owned by Disney. The current president of DC film production is Walter Hamada.

Not for long.

DC urgently needs all the help it can get.

...

Soon, however, Wonder Woman won't be the one holding the golden lasso anymore. Instead, power will be wielded by an all-controlling DC film production head who will attempt to turn things around. Before they arrive, killing "Batgirl" is Step 1.

"This is the end of DC as a hobby," the source said.

"We are leaving ClownWorld," I read that as meaning.

Now, is this really being shelved because of poor audience reaction? Virtually every DC movie has been poorly received; that hasn't stopped them from shitting these things out into American theaters.

Probably the movie is terrible but so what? They're all terrible.

Here's the backstory as to why Andrej from Midnight's Edge thinks that the real reason for the shelving is about the #Woke path the film was intended to commit the DC movie universe to.

Yesterday I reported that David Zaslav, CEO of Discovery Warner, had fired female CEO Ann Sarnov and had replaced her not with a White Man but with... nobody. He just fired her, and replaced her with no one, deciding that what she had been doing simply did not need to be done by anyone.

And what was she doing? Well, Andrej says she was pushing Feminist Agenda into movies.

Specifically, he says she was the motivating force behind the master plan to eliminate the "problematic" figures of the troublesome, toxically-masculine figures of Superman and Batman from the DC Extended Universe, and replace them with... Supergirl and Batgirl.

Note that the Robert Pattison Batman movie exists in its own separate Batman universe where there are no other superheroes or real superpowers so that isn't affected. This refers to the crossover universe, the "Justice League" universe.

And in that universe, Batman was going to be replaced by Batgirl, and Superman by Supergirl.

Now, I don't think this is only about agenda: Ben Affleck simply does not want to play Batman ever again, and is only playing him in short appearances to finish up his contract, and DC cannot come to terms with fan favorite Henry Cavill, who wants a multipicture deal and a firm commitment to make standalone Superman movies.

Maybe it's a mix of both Feminist Agenda and the brilliant idea of "Let's just replace the male actors with female ones, who work for 70% of the male actors' salaries!"

The plan goes like this: In the Flash movie, due to time-travel and multiverse-crossing nonsense, the Michael Keaton Batman enters the Justice League Universe and gets to share screen time with the Ben Affleck Batman. But the Ben Affleck Batman dies, making the older, retired Michael Keaton Batman the official, and only, Batman of the Justice League universe.

Being older and retired, his main role will be to serve as a Mr. Miyagi like mentor to his replacement, the race-swapped Batgirl.

Meanwhile, the Flash movie also introduced Supergirl (also race-swapped, if you can believe that!). She will be replacing Superman.

Henry Cavill isn't coming back to film a death scene, so they'll just have to claim he went back to Krypton but died on the way back to his home planet.

When Zaslav -- or whoever the source for this story -- says that the Batgirl movie will irreparably damage the DC brand, he's almost certainly not just talking about the film's quality, which is, of course, almost certainly down to the low level we've come to expect from DC.

He's also talking about this movie establishing that Batman -- the real one, the active one -- and Superman are dead in this universe and have been replaced by Younger, More Diverse Female Replacements Who Are Superior In Every Way, Bigot.

Which he suspects won't play as well with the mostly-male comic book movie audience as Girlboss feminist CEOs might. Activist Twitter lunatics demand that Hollywood make movies for them... and then never actually see these movies.

They just want the movies taken away from straight men, whom they hate with the intensity of a burning cross.

Andrej further speculates that if Zaslav is willing to #cancel a $70 or probably $100 million movie just to save some of the remaining brand value of DC, he's probably also willing to #cancel the $200 million Flash movie, which both sets up all of this #Woke crap -- in fact, the movie hardly seems to have any other purpose except to set up the future #Woke assumptions of the DC universe -- and also stars a violent, woman-strangling groomer lunatic.

The Ace of Spades Decision Desk is ready to make the call: The Flash movie will also be cancelled, decision to be announced within the next two weeks.

Ethan Van Sciver points out that feminists are whining and complaining (no wait, there's more, that's not the story) that this Batgirl movie was cancelled, but that the woman-strangling, underage-girl-grooming Ezra Miller's Flash movie has not been cancelled yet.

Which is, you know: A rare good point from the feminists.

Which makes it even more likely the Flash will be cancelled.

Jezebel -- the AllahPundit of film commentary -- also suspects... racism.

Although Variety's sources say the decision to axe the project wasn't due to quality, I have to wonder if the studio would really cut a $90 million movie altogether solely because of a sudden strategy pivot. $90 million is, like, a lot of money!! The "badassery" quote certainly raises a question or two about possible cringey "girlboss" lines and plot points, but still, just scrapping the entire project--starring, written, and directed by women and people of color--seems... dramatic.

All the more so given other projects Warner Bros. still appears to be moving forward with: Ezra Miller's The Flash, for instance, remains slated for a 2023 release. This, of course, is despite how Miller is accused of grooming teens and going on the run with an Indigenous teen whose parents have accused Miller of grooming their child. Miller has been missing for almost two months now, evading being served court papers. Trouble started brewing for Miller earlier this year when they had several run-ins with law enforcement on vacation in Hawaii, allegedly starting fights, breaking into guests' hotel rooms, and making threats to other tourists.

Warner Bros. has reportedly been weighing how to handle Miller's upcoming movie given their recent behavior--but it certainly hasn't pulled the plug on the project. Nevertheless, the studio clearly had no trouble throwing out a movie starring an Afro-Latinx heroine. Grace, her fellow cast-mates, and others who worked on Batgirl have yet to speak out on what exactly happened, and we all have lots and lots of questions.

The Ace of Spades Decision Desk stands by its call.

He doesn't mention it, but as to DC Comics itself? If DC Comics isn't seeing mass firings yet, that's only because it's such a small corner of the behemoth that is Discovery Warner that no one's noticed it yet.

But when they do...

posted by Ace at 01:23 PM

| Access Comments