Last summer’s merger of Warner Bros. and Discovery into Warner Bros. Discovery created a lot of casualties. Many planned projects that were finished or near completion were ultimately shelved, presumably never to be seen again, in order to take what were said to be necessary tax breaks. But today Scooby-Doo! And Krypto, Too!, which had been canceled and written off emerged in its entirety online. And it seems to have whetted fans’ appetites for more forbidden fruit. And the most in-demand canceled project of all is Batgirl.
Now let us see the trash-binned Batgirl movie too. I just want to see Brendan’s performance.
— Corey Miller (@theCoreyMiller) March 6, 2023
Of all the projects permanently shelved by the new media conglomerate, perhaps none has proven as controversial as the Batgirl solo film starring In the Heights actor Leslie Grace as Batgirl and Oscar nominee Brendan Fraser as the pyromaniacal villain Firefly. WBD announced that they felt the film did not work after screening it for preview audiences and CEO David Zaslav ultimately pulled the plug on the project, putting it “among the most expensive canceled cinematic projects ever” according to The Guardian.
Warner Bros. Discovery security is no doubt working strenuously to plug whatever hole Scooby-Doo! And Krypto, Too! fell out of (not to mention heavily fine whoever made the leak happen, at the very least) but there is certainly a risk — given the sheer amount of canceled content stored away in WBD’s vaults — that more leaks may occur even if they don’t happen to involve Batgirl. Many fans are surely wondering why WBD won’t just release the movie and be done with it but the fact that the company has used the film as a tax write-off means it cannot legally profit from the project. This means it cannot be sold to another company or even streamed for “free” on HBO Max.
However, there’s no denying the appetite that has been rekindled for the film on the heels of the latest Scooby-Doo leak. If Warner Bros. Discovery cannot find a way to shore up its shelved projects it may be only a matter of time before the public sees it in a contraband form, tax break or not.
