Last week, Warner Bros. Discovery made the controversial choice to cancel the release of Batgirl, a reportedly $90 million comic book adaptation that was set to debut on HBO Max. It's an unprecedented move that earned the boiling ire of comic book fans and the befuddlement of Hollywood insiders. And, as someone who comfortably fits into both camps, director Kevin Smith has a lot to say about this surprising news.
During the most recent episode of his podcast Hollywood Babble-On, Smith called out Warner Bros. for the "baffling" decision to shelve Batgirl, leaving the movie permanently unfinished and unreleased. The Clerks writer-director claimed it was an "incredibly bad look to cancel the Latina Batgirl movie," especially as the directors, Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi, have been on-the-rise at the helm of 2020's Bad Boys for Life and two acclaimed episodes of Disney+'s Ms. Marvel:
It's an incredibly bad look to cancel the Latina Batgirl movie. I don't give a shit if the movie was absolute fucking dogshit, man, and I guarantee you that it wasn't. The two directors who directed that movie did a couple of episodes of Ms. Marvel, and that was a wonderful fucking show, y'know. Great looking and they had more money to do Batgirl than they had to do an episode of Ms. Marvel and stuff. And also, I love all the CW shows, and the CW shows show their budgetary constraints, and the big complaint they said here was, 'Oh well it isn't big enough to be a fucking theatrical release, so... It looked too cheap because it was a 90 million dollar movie.' How do you make a cheap looking 90 million dollar fucking movie? But if it looked anything, like, slightly better than an episode of fucking Arrow, why couldn't we have seen that? It feels like there's more than just 'We're gonna save 20 million dollars,' like, I don't know, man.
Furthermore, Smith criticized the company for axing this promising and progressive streaming title while still going full speed ahead (no pun intended) with the theatrical release of The Flash, which stars Ezra Miller. The actor has been at the center of a variety of controversies related to abusive behavior. Smith doesn't understand why the company feels so confident in this film's potential but didn't want to go ahead with Batgirl's once-planned release:
That is the baffling thing. I don't give a shit how bad the Batgirl movie is, nobody in that movie is complicated or has anything in theier real life you have to market around. In The Flash movie, we all know there's a big problem! Flash is the Reverse-Flash in real life.
Kevin Smith Shares Image Of Latest Completed Movie Script
In their recent investor call, David Zaslav stressed the importance of theatrical releases for their upcoming films, and it's been suggested that Batgirl didn't fit neatly into their plans moving forward. It was too small-scale to compare to their other DC titles, and it was ultimately too big for the small screen. Rather than throw a few extra bucks into reshoots to give it a proper theatrical rollout, Zaslav felt it was more productive to shelve the unfinished film into the fire and collect some money from a tax write-off. Though it wasn't as heavily reported, the studio also decided to give Scoob! Holiday Haunt the same fate.
The new CEO claimed that the other DC titles, including Shazam! Fury of the Gods and Black Adam, are still going forward with their theatrical plans. Furthermore, he noted that these films, as well as The Flash, are all "terrific" and that he thinks he can "make them even better." Nevertheless, in the process of chasing the clout of these upcoming theatrical titles and opting to throw Batgirl out the window, WB's new management has lost some trust from fans and talent alike, and that certainly includes Smith's criticisms.
You can watch the clip from the recent Hollywood Babble-On below: