Just when you thought Warner Bros. couldn’t do anymore to antagonize the DC fanbase, the studio went ahead and canned Batgirl when post-production was nearing completion, sending the internet into a state of meltdown it still hasn’t recovered from.
Roping in the directors of Bad Boys for Life and Ms. Marvel, rising star Leslie Grace, Academy Award-winning actor J.K. Simmons, beloved icon Brendan Fraser, and Michael Keaton as goddamned Batman for a superhero blockbuster and then pulling the plug for tax purposes was a controversial call to say the least, and one that cinema historians will no doubt be looking back on in the years to come.
It’s hard to remember any other outfit in the industry swimming so hard against the tide of what its fandom wants to see, and yet another wrinkle has emerged in a Rolling Stone report diving deep into the Batgirl farce. As you may have noticed, the #RestoreTheSnyderVerse movement is alive and well, with some of the more overzealous supporters even operating under the impression that David Zaslav is ruthlessly wielding the axe to clear a path for Zack Snyder’s return.
However, the fact that the aforementioned report reveals that documentary filmmaker Leslie Iwerks went to WB in an effort to license clips from the four-hour HBO Max exclusive as part of a project chronicling the history of DC, and was told that the only version of the all-star epic worth its salt is Joss Whedon’s maligned theatrical release, tells you all that you need to know.
The anti-WB sentiment has increased exponentially post-Batgirl, so denying the existence of a movie that boasts its own vociferous loyalists is sort of on-brand when you think about it.
