“Warner Bros studios didn’t even have the courtesy to send a bat signal to the actors and creative staff of Batgirl to tell them that their film had been sentenced to an Arkham cell,” report it New York Post. It is the same daily which had revealed, Tuesday August 2, this decision of the large Hollywood studio of “not showing the latest, near-complete DC movie either in theaters or on HBO Max [la plateforme de streaming de Warner, indisponible en France]. No one will ever be able to see this movie.”
While filming was over and the post-production stage well advanced, this cancellation learned from the press shocked the teams, in the casting as well as in the production. “Angry, several actors privately confided in those around them that this twist of fate was both ‘humiliating’ and ‘disappointing’.” The two filmmakers at the helm, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, said in a press release and an Instagram post that they were “sad and shocked” and that they “still couldn’t believe it”.
The production budget had experienced, even before marketing costs, a significant increase due to Covid-19 to stand at 90 million dollars officially, 100 million according to the confidential source of the tabloid (respectively 88 and 98 million dollars). euro).
Stuck between streaming and theatrical release
The reasons for this decision at the top are multiple and relate in particular to changes in distribution strategy, under the impetus of the new boss, David Zaslav, who took on this role in the spring with the merger between WarnerMedia and the Discovery group. The American firm “is ditching its previous direct-to-streaming strategy” at the same time as the theatrical release, relates the New York Postto return to a more classic media chronology, prioritizing the cinema.
However, faced with a larger than expected budget, Batgirl appeared to be both too expensive to be offered only on streaming and too bad for the cinema. the New York Post thus reveals that the managers of HBO Max showed no enthusiasm for the feature film: “According to an industry source confiding in the Post, the quality of the film also came into play.”
The test screenings obviously provoked a reaction that was too lukewarm in the eyes of the decision-makers to justify a theatrical release. According to an accounting calculation published by the magazine Variety and quoted by the tabloid, the cancellation not only makes it possible to avoid the significant costs of a marketing campaign, but also to probably take advantage of a “tax deduction”, enough to partially compensate for the lost investment.
However, as you might expect, comic book fans in the cinema don’t have exactly the same accounting considerations. “The sacrificed film plunges the studio into deep embarrassment: on the networks, fans are demanding its release, and the disaster is further increased by the fact that the title character was played by a Latino actress. [Leslie Grace]surrounded by actors and directors from minorities.”
Warner did not respond to requests from the New York daily, which also notes that his reputation has taken a hit with professionals in the entertainment industry.