Originally published August 3, 2022. Updated August 5, 2022.
Yesterday’s news that Warner Bros. Discovery was shelving Batgirl so far into its production was quite a shock to everyone, but none more so than its directors Adil El Arbi and Bilal Fallah. After taking the day, the directing pair have finally broken their silence through their Instagram.
Adil and Bilall said they were “saddened and shocked by the news. We still can’t believe it. As directors, it is critical that our work be shown to audiences, and while the film was far from finished, we wish that fans all over the world would have the opportunity to see and embrace the final films themselves. Maybe one day they will insha’Allah.”
Adil and Bilall have been growing their profile significantly over the last couple of years. They resurrected the Bay Boys franchise with the third film, Bad Boys for Life, which proved to be quite successful at the box office. More recently they directed and executive produced Disney+’s Marvel series Ms. Marvel, which has also received much praise from critics and fans alike.
In their statement the pair went on to praise the film’s cast and crew, calling out lead star Leslie Grace in particular as she “portrayed Batgirl with so much passion, dedication and humanity.” Read their full statement below…
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Batgirl was set for a release on HBO Max with a hope of a theatrical run and was already in the stages of post-production with a cost of $90 million having already been put into the film. The Scoob! sequel Scoob!: Holiday Haunt is also a casualty as it was also near completion but has been shelved alongside Batgirl.
While early reports claimed WBD chose to shelve Batgirl due to “irredeemable” test screenings, further reports have cited WBD’s president David Zaslav’s dislike of the HBO Max initiative and chose to shelve Batgirl and Scoob!: Holiday Haunt as a tax write down in the wake of WB and Discovery’s merger to recoup some of the losses they’ll take with cancelling such costly projects.
Batgirl was directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (Bad Boys For Life) and featured Leslie Grace (In the Heights) as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, J.K. Simmons (Justice League) as Commissioner Jim Gordon, Micheal Keaton (The Flash) as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Brendan Fraser (Doom Patrol) as Firefly, Ivory Aquino (When They See Us) as Alysia Yeoh and Jacob Scipio (Bad Boys for Life), Rebecca Front (Avenue 5), Corey Johnson (Morbius) and Ethan Kai (Killing Eve) in unrevealed roles.
Ricky Church – Follow me on Twitter for more movie news and nerd talk.
