Brendan Fraser and Michael Keaton weigh in on Batgirl cancellation

Incoming Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav shocked onlookers the other month when he cancelled Batgirl, a made-for-HBO Max movie that was already in post-production and had cost the studio in excess of $80 million. Apparently, Zaslav thought the movie would be worth more if they cancelled it and used it as a tax write-down rather than if they released it. This upset quite a few people, including star Leslie Grace, who played the title role.

Batgirl would also have featured the return of Michael Keaton as Batman, a role he hasn’t played since 1992’s Batman Returns. Deadline caught up with the actor at the Emmys earlier this week, where he won an award for his work in the Hulu miniseries Dopesick. “I think it was a business decision,” Keaton said. “It was a film, it was a good one.”

That said, we will see Keaton as Batman again in The Flash, which is due out in theaters next year. For the rest of the cast, their futures at DC Films are less clear.

Brendan Fraser thinks Batgirl was “the canary in the coal mine”

That includes Brendan Fraser, who played the villain Firefly. “The fans really wanted to see this film made,” he told Variety. “Leslie Grace is a dynamo.

"The movie was shot and conceived for a smaller screen. In this age that we’ve come out of now between streaming service versus theatrical release, it wound up being the canary in the coal mine."

It’s true that studios are grappling these days with how to justify releasing expensive films on streaming service when they can’t be monetized in the way that ordinary theatrical releases are. There’s going to be some weirdness before all of this is figured out.

Batgirl was going to be part of Fraser’s comeback tour as an actor, although he seems to be getting along just fine without it. He’s currently our there promoting the Darren Aronofsky film The Whale and has generated some early Oscar buzz for his performance.

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