“Batgirl” directors call movie's cancelation 'the biggest disappointment of our careers'
DC's Batgirl movie was gone in a flash, and now, the film's directors have reflected on their canceled project.
"It's the biggest disappointment of our careers," Adil El Arbi told Insider. "There's still a feeling of unfinished business," Bilall Fallah said.
After filming was almost completed, Batgirl was abruptly pulled from Warner Brothers' release schedule, supposedly as the result of a cost-cutting strategy that allowed the studio to cite the unreleased $90 million-film as a tax write-off. There are no plans for the movie to be released.
"We didn't get the chance to show Batgirl to the world and let the audience judge for themselves," Adil told Insider. "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."
Leslie Grace/Instagram/Warner Bros. Leslie Grace in 'Batgirl'
The film was set to star Leslie Grace as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, while J.K. Simmons reprised his role from Justice League, Gotham Police Commissioner Jim Gordon. Oscar winner Brendan Fraser also played the film's antagonist, Firefly.
Michael Keaton's Batman, who was reintroduced to the cinematic DC universe in this year's The Flash, was also set to play a key role in Batgirl. "I felt like a kid on set working with Keaton," Bilall said. "I totally forgot that I was directing."
"As a fanboy, just to be in the presence of Keaton as Batman, that's just a privilege and an honor. But it's a bittersweet feeling," Adil told Insider. When the movie was canceled, "[Keaton] was sad but he also said he had fun."
Batgirl was initially intended to follow The Flash chronologically and pick up where Keaton's Batman had left off. Based on Keaton's character's fate at the end of final cut of The Flash, however, it seems that DC's plans for his iteration of the character changed considerably between Batgirl's production and The Flash's release. (Spoilers for The Flash: Keaton's Bruce Wayne dies in the movie, and is replaced by George Clooney after some timeline-shuffling shenanigans.) Now, the entire DC slate is being wiped clean by a reboot courtesy of James Gunn, so it's expected that none of The Flash's three Batmen will appear in the new continuity.
"We watched [The Flash] and we were sad," Adil told Insider. "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."
However, the Batgirl ordeal hasn't extinguished the directing duo's desire to helm a DC project in the future. "Our love for DC, Batman, Batgirl, Gotham City, it's so big that, as fans, we could never say no to another project," Adil told Insider. "If we got another chance to be part of it, we'd do it. We didn't get our day in court. We still want to make our case."
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