‘Batgirl’: Brendan Fraser Says Film’s “Tragic” Cancellation “Doesn’t Engender Trust” With Filmmakers

One of the biggest stories out of Hollywood this summer was Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav‘s cancellation of the HBO Max film “Batgirl” following the Discovery-WarnerMedia merger. Scrapping a $90 million movie in post-production is an unprecedented move, and those involved with the film are still reeling from Zaslav’s decision. Add Brendan Fraser, who played the villain in “Batgirl,” to that list.

READ MORE: ‘Batgirl’: Star Leslie Grace Leaks Brief Clip Of Footage From The Scrapped Movie On TikTok

EW reports (via Variety) that Fraser is still in disbelief about the sudden scrapping of “Batgirl.” “It’s tragic,” he told Variety in an interview. “It doesn’t engender trust among filmmakers and the studio. “Leslie Grace [who plays Barbara Gordon/Batgirl in the film] was fantastic. She’s a dynamo, just a spot-on performer.” In the film, Fraser played opposite Grace as Firefly, a pyromaniac supervillain who torches up Gotham City. If the film made it to HBO Max, Grace’s Batgirl would have been the first-ever Latina lead superhero.

Fraser went on to describe the production of “Batgirl,” where directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah emphasized physical stunts over rampant green screen. “Everything that we shot was real and exciting and just the antithesis of doing a straightforward digital all-green screen thing,” Fraser continued. “They ran firetrucks around downtown Glasgow at 3 in the morning, and they had flamethrowers. It was a big-budget movie, but one that was just stripped down to the essential.” Ironically, a stripped-down superhero film may be what audiences would most want to see right now. After all, aren’t moviegoers starting to tire of the heavy CGI of MCU films like “Thor: Love & Thunder“?

Alas, no one will ever get a chance to see what “Batgirl” could have been. Warner Bros. shelved the film as part of a massive tax write-down to save the studio $3 billion. After some graveyard screenings of the unfinished film on the Warner Bros. lot in August, the studio has the movie locked up, never to be watched again. And while El Arbi and Fallah assembled a rough cut from their footage, Fraser has no interest in watching it. “I don’t eat half-baked cake,” Fraser said. “Everything that Adil and Bilall shot felt real and exciting.”

If “Batgirl” had been released, it would have been another recent performance by Fraser in his return to acting after a long hiatus. Fraser’s other recent roles include Steven Soderbergh‘s “No Sudden Move‘ from last year and Darren Aronofsky‘s “The Whale,” which hits theaters on December 9. Critics have praised Fraser’s performance in “The Whale,” and he’s a frontrunner for the Best Actor Oscar this winter. Fraser stars next in Martin Scorsese‘s “Killers Of The Flower Moon,” out sometime next year.

As for “Batgirl”? Don’t expect to see footage of Brendan Fraser’s Firefly any time soon. It looks like Zaslav and Warner Bros. Discovery are committed to turning the movie into a tax write-off, and the unfinished footage will never see the light of day.