Brendan Fraser is still raw about Warner Bros. canning “Batgirl,” over three years after the studio shelved the movie.
In a new interview with AP News, the “The Rental” actor opined on the dangerous sentiment from Warner Bros. to cancel the 2022 superhero flick in a “cost-saving measure.” Directing duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah helmed the $90 million picture, which had a cast of Leslie Grace as Batgirl, Fraser as villain Firefly, and J.K. Simmons as Police Commissioner Jim Godon. Oh, and Michael Keaton also featured as Bruce Wayne/Batman, in what was supposed to be his return to his iconic role in Tim Burton‘s two “Batman” films before he did in “The Flash.”
“A whole movie,” Fraser said, still in apparent disbelief over the film’s cancellation. “I mean, there were four floors of production in Glasgow. I was sneaking in to the art department just to geek out. The tragedy of that is that there’s a generation of little girls who don’t have a heroine to look up to and go, ‘She looks like me.’ I mean, Michael Keaton came back as Batman. The Batman!” Fraser’s bafflement at Warner Bros.’ decision to axe the film makes sense. When news first broke about “Batgirl” in August 2022, The Guardian stated its cancellation is “among the most expensive canceled cinematic projects ever”. Studios just don’t make decisions like this for a movie that costly, much less a movie in the industry’s most popular genre.
But what does Fraser think that move by Warner Bros. means for the state of studio filmmaking at large? “The product — I’m sorry, “content” — is being commodified to the extent that it’s more valuable to burn it down and get the insurance on it than to give it a shot in the marketplace,” the actor continued. “I mean, with respect, we could blight itself.” That’s cutting criticism on Fraser’s part. Writing off a completed movie for a tax return doesn’t exactly champion the creative process that goes into making films.
Fraser’s comments echo previous ones he made to Variety in October 2022, when he called the “Batgirl” cancellation “tragic”: “It doesn’t engender trust among filmmakers and the studio. The Russo Brothers chimed in a month later with their own commentary about the situation, likening the movie’s shelving to a “murder.” “It’s sad, but we’re at a time in the business where corporate sociopathy is going to rear its head because people are scared,” said Joe Russo.
As for El Arbi and Fallah, they bounced back after “Batgirl” with “Bad Boys: Ride Or Die,” but losing their film to studio interference haunts them. Speaking to The Playlist in September 2023, El Arbi said, “Without a doubt, it’s the biggest disappointment of our career because we do this because of passion, you know? When you want to make a movie, you love the story, the characters, Gotham City, and DC, and all that. Choosing is losing and we had to turn down another fantastic project for it–we lost “Beverly Hills Cop 4” in order to do “Batgirl,” which makes it even more painful because it was a tough, tough decision.”
At this point, the fate of “Batgirl” is sealed, and Warner Bros. will never release the film for public consumption. But tremors from the movie’s cancellation still reverberate through the industry today. If a superhero movie that cost nearly $100 million could get canned, what else could get axed for the sake of saving a studio some money? The precedent set three years ago basically affirms greed over the shared, collective process of moviemaking, from its initial development through shooting and post-production. Is saving money really more important for Warner Bros. than the risk and creativity that a cast and crew applies in making a film together? If the answer is yes, and it is, then Fraser is right: humanity is blighting itself, in the movie industry and virtually everywhere else. A sobering thought for Friday morning, but here we are.
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