Among the latest public dissenters, Kevin Smith, American filmmaker, actor, comedian, comic book writer, Youtuber, and podcaster, speaks out against the axing of HBO Max’s Batgirl by Warner Bros. The strategic move was implemented by the new management at Warner Bros. Discovery, the merged product of AT&T’s WarnerMedia and Discovery.
As of now, the movie which was nearing completion and on its way to an HBO Max premiere has been the unfortunate subject of the brutal shifts being executed to make headway for a new long-term plan for DC.
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The Extinguished Brilliance of the Underrated Batgirl Cast
Warner Bros. Discovery’s move on canceling Batgirl was announced to the shock and dismay of movie-goers, comic lovers, and people of the industry. Several have questioned the unethical move since the movie had been receptive to widespread praise and anticipation for many years. When the project was first announced in 2017, it immediately warmed up to people’s perception with the increasingly good products that were being helmed by DC in recent years.
Adding to the DC-banner, the project also became widely anticipated since it would feature an exemplary cast comprising Leslie Grace as Barbara Gordon aka Batgirl, J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon, Michael Keaton‘s re-entry as Batman for the first time since 1992, Brendan Fraser as antagonist Firefly in his first major big-screen appearance since his yesteryears’ fame, and Filipina-American actress Ivory Aquino as Alysia Yeoh, the first transgender character to appear in a live-action DC film.
Kevin Smith Admonishes Warner Bros.’ Axing of Batgirl
The director, 52, has spoken out against the shelving of Batgirl on his YouTube channel. According to official reports by WB, the movie had been deemed unworthy for public launch since it didn’t pan out during its early reviews. Frustrated by the unexpected below-the-belt move by the production house, Smith says:
“It’s an incredibly bad look to cancel the Latina Batgirl movie. I don’t give a sh*t if the movie was absolute f*cking dogsh*t man, and I guarantee you that it wasn’t. The two directors who directed that movie did a couple of episodes of Ms. Marvel, and that was a wonderful f*cking show, y’know. Great looking and they had more money to do Batgirl than they had to do an episode of Ms. Marvel and stuff.
…the big complaint they said here was ‘Oh well it isn’t big enough to be a f*cking theatrical release, so… It looked too cheap because it was a 90 million dollar movie.’ How do you make a cheap looking 90 million dollar f*cking movie? But if it looked anything, like, slightly better than an episode of f*cking Arrow, why couldn’t we have seen that? It feels like there’s more than just ‘We’re gonna save 20 million dollars,’ like, I don’t know, man.”
Related article: Kevin Smith Is Ready For Black Adam, Only Due To The Rock’s Enthusiasm
Following in the footsteps of Batgirl, recent test screening reports for Black Adam are allegedly displaying the same results as per Warner Bros. However, owing to his tendency to pull in more audiences despite his otherwise commonplace movie plots, it’s highly unlikely that the studio will deliver The Rock’s DCEU debut to the same fate as that of Batgirl.
Black Adam premieres on 21 October 2022.
Source: Kevin Smith
