Renowned directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah have worked on numerous popular projects. Their best works include Bad Boys for Life, Hashtag, Gangsta, and others. However, the director duo’s dream project Batgirl, was canned by Warner Bros. They had barely been able to stomach the disappointment when DC Studios released Ezra Miller’s The Flash.
Batgirl directors shared their heartbreaking reaction to watching DC Studio’s June release The Flash, as they felt their movie deserved a chance to be released.
Director Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah are disappointed over cancelling Batgirl
The announcement about scrapping Batgirl was made in August 2022. The film was already nearing completion of its production when Warner Bros. Discovery canceled the release. The director duo was immensely disappointed and shared in a now-deleted Instagram post,
“We are saddened and shocked by the news. We still can’t believe it.”
About a year later, the directors were in conversation with Insider about their new film, the Syrian war drama Rebel. El Arbi and Fallah said their sadness was worsened by the release of the DC’s Ezra Miller film, The Flash.
El Arbi said to Insider,
“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.”
The star cast of Batgirl included Leslie Grace as Batgirl, alongside J. K. Simmons, Jacob Scipio, Brendan Fraser, and Michael Keaton.
Adil El Arbi wanted audiences to judge Leslie Grace’s Batgirl
As per reports, The Flash actor Michael Keaton was also supposed to play a prominent role in Batgirl. Actress Leslie Grace played the lead in the film.
Warner Bros. Discovery issued an explanation for canceling HBO Max’s original film. The statement read,
“The decision to not release Batgirl reflects our leadership’s strategic shift as it relates to the DC universe and HBO Max. Leslie Grace is an incredibly talented actor, and this decision is not a reflection of her performance.”
As per Variety, there was another reason for cancellation: budget issues. As per the source,
“The $90 million budget for Batgirl was apparently neither big enough to feel worthy of a major theatrical release nor small enough to make economic sense in an increasingly cutthroat streaming landscape.”
However, the directors still feel that the film’s fate should have been left in the hands of the audience instead of the production. Adil El Arbi told Insider,
“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.”
The Flash stars Ezra Miller as Barry Allen, who causes disruption in the DC multiverse as he attempts to go back in time to prevent the murder of his mother. However, things go haywire when he tries to alter the past.
The Flash is streaming on Max.
