DC Studios boss says Batgirl was “not releasable”

According to Variety, while presenting the new 8-10 year slate of DC movie and TV projects, DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran said that the canceled Batgirl movie is “not releasable.”

“Batgirl’s a character that inevitably we will include in our story,” Safran said. “On the Batgirl front, it’s not about late in the process of the film getting canceled. I saw the movie, and there are a lot of incredibly talented people in front of and behind the camera on that film. But that film was not releasable, and it happens sometimes. That film was not releasable. I actually think that [Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav] and the team made a very bold and courageous decision to cancel it because it would have hurt DC. It would have hurt those people involved.”

Batgirl was canceled by Warner Bros. Discovery in August, before Safran and James Gunn took over the reins at DC Studios. The film was set to star Leslie Grace as the titular character, with J.K. Simmons reprising his role as Commissioner Gordon. Brendan Fraser was set to play the villain Firefly, with Michael Keaton on the hook to bring back his version of Batman from Tim Burton’s films. Batgirl cost $90 million to make and was basically complete at the time of its cancellation, leaving many shocked when it was announced that the studio was not even willing to try to make some of its money back by releasing it.

Safran said that there is a good chance the Batgirl character will be involved in future DC projects. That could include the new Batman movie The Brave and the Bold, which Gunn described as the beginning of a Bat family storyline. The full slate of future DC projects was announced earlier this week.

HBO Max cancels Pennyworth: The Origin of Batman’s Butler

In other Bat-cancelation news, Deadline reports that Warner Bros. Discovery has canceled Pennyworth: The Origin of Batman’s Butler, which has an unwieldy title that tells you everything about the show you need to know.

Pennyworth, which aired its first two seasons on Epix before dropping a third on HBO Max, starred Jack Bannon as Alfred Pennyworth, a former British special forces soldier who gets mixed up with American socialite and CIA agent Thomas Wayne as well as his eventual wife Martha. Years later, Alfred will iron Batman’s underpants and fix his breakfast. You’ll just have to imagine what happens during those intervening years.

One Bat-project that isn’t getting canceled is the sequel to Matt Reeves’ movie The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson as the Caped Crusader. Reeves hyped that one up a bit on Twitter:

Together with The Brave and the Bold and the upcoming Joker movie, there’s still plenty of Bat-fuel left in the Bat-tank.

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