Kevin Smith is calling out Warner Bros. Discovery for a series of “bad” decisions over the DC Universe.
Smith dished on his “Hollywood Babble-On” YouTube show that HBO should reassess releasing “Batgirl,” the shelved $90 million DC Comics installment starring Leslie Grace, Brendan Fraser, and J.K. Simmons.
“It’s an incredibly bad look to cancel the Latina ‘Batgirl’ movie,” Smith lamented. “I don’t give a shit if the movie was absolute fucking dog shit – I guarantee you that it wasn’t. The two directors [Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi] who directed that movie did a couple of episodes of ‘Ms. Marvel,’ and it was a wonderful fucking show, and they had more money to do ‘Batgirl’ than they had to do an episode of ‘Ms. Marvel’ and stuff.”
Smith said, “I love all the CW shows, but the CW shows show their budgetary constraints. They said ‘Batgirl’ looked too cheap because it was a $90 million movie. How do you make a cheap-looking $90 million movie? If it looked slightly better than an episode of ‘Arrow’ then why couldn’t we see that?”
Smith continued on “Babble-On” that it is “baffling” for Warner Bros. Discovery to stand by “The Flash” star Ezra Miller amid multiple arrests when “Batgirl” actress Leslie Grace wasn’t even given a chance.
“I don’t give a shit how bad the ‘Batgirl’ movie is, nobody in that movie is complicated or has anything in their real life you have to market around,” Smith summed up. “In ‘The Flash’ movie, we all know there’s a big problem! Flash is the Reverse-Flash in real life.”
“Batgirl” will not be released in theaters or on streamer HBO Max despite the film being in post-production. Rumors circulated that the film was “irredeemable” in test screenings, but Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav later clarified during the company’s second-quarter 2022 earnings call that axing the movie was part of a plan to “bring Warner back and produce great high-quality films” with a mission to “protect the DC brand.”
“We have some great DC films coming up: ‘Black Adam,’ ‘Shazam!,’ and ‘Flash.’ We’re working on all of those. We’ve seen them, and we think they’re terrific, and that we can make them even better,” Zaslav said.
Grace took to social media after the “Batgirl” news, writing, “I am proud of the love, hard work and intention all of our incredible cast and tireless crew put into this film over 7 months in Scotland. I feel blessed to have worked among absolute greats and forged relationships for a lifetime in the process! To every Batgirl fan – THANK YOU for the love and belief, allowing me to take on the cape and become, as Babs said best, ‘my own damn hero!’ #Batgirl for life!”
Filmmakers in addition to Smith have also criticized the decision by Warner Bros. Discovery. Edgar Wright, James Gunn, and Marvel president Kevin Feige all reached out to “Batgirl” directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, with El Arbi thanking them for their “your kind words and experience” which helped the duo “through this difficult period.”
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