Hollywood insider Matthew Belloni reveals more details about the poor reactions to DC's canceled Batgirl movie from someone who attended a test screening. Warner Bros. Discovery sent shockwaves through Hollywood when they made the unprecedented decision to completely cancel the HBO Max release of Batgirl, which had a reported budget of $90 million and had already finished filming and was well into post-production. Batgirl would have starred In the Heights breakout Leslie Grace as the titular heroine, Oscar winner J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon, Brendan Fraser as the villain Firefly, and Michael Keaton returning as Batman.
In the days since the news surfaced, speculation has run rampant regarding why the studio would cancel a nearly finished film. Warner Bros. released a statement saying the decision was motivated by a "strategic shift" under new management, CEO David Zaslav, and had nothing to do with Grace's performance in the film or the skills of the directing due behind the film, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. Further reports claimed the decision to scrap Batgirl was due to a refocus on theatrical releases, cost-cutting measures, and poor evaluations by test audiences.
On his podcast The Town, Hollywood insider Belloni revealed more details about Batgirl's poor test screenings. Belloni detailed a discussion he had with someone who attended a test screening months ago. After the screening, the audience overwhelmingly agreed the film was not "big" enough to receive a theatrical release, as it instead "played like a TV pilot" with low stakes. The test screening attendee that Belloni spoke to also compared Batgirl to the box-office bomb Dark Phoenix. Read what Belloni shared below:
This is someone who was in the test screening a couple months ago where they were trying to figure out what to do with this movie and I called him and we chatted and he said that after the screening, the executives Walter Hamada of DC and some of the others there ask the audience, "Did this feel big?" and clearly they were trying to figure out whether it felt like it deserved a theatrical release and the consensus was absolutely not. He said it played like a TV pilot, the stakes were very small... He said it felt a little like Dark Phoenix.
Despite reports to the contrary, it seems like Warner Bros. did consider a theatrical release for Batgirl if what Belloni says is true. The studio held numerous screenings in order to determine if it was worthy of a theatrical release, but the consensus seems to have been that it was not. The comparison to a TV pilot also makes sense, since the Batgirl movie was produced for the streaming service HBO Max. The comparison to Dark Phoenix also does not reflect kindly on Batgirl. The 2019 X-Men movie also tested poorly with audiences which resulted in the entire third act being reshot, though this didn't save it from becoming one of the biggest box-office bombs of all time.
After determining Batgirl was not worthy of a theatrical release through test audiences, Warner Bros. Discovery decided it was not suitable for HBO Max either because its $90 million price tag was too expensive for streaming under Zaslav's new standards. Thus, the studio canceled Batgirl in order to receive tax write-offs to help recoup the costs. It's certainly a devastating decision for everyone involved with the movie and anyone looking forward to seeing it.
Source: The Town
