Think HBO Max’s $90 million “Batgirl” film, which was scrapped in order to take a tax write-down on it, will eventually end up online? Think again.
Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the Belgian filmmakers who directed the project, have revealed they don’t even have any footage of the film saved and it seems doubtful others will either.
In a new interview for the YouTube channel SKRIPT, the pair talked about Warner Bros. Discovery’s shock decision to shelve the Batgirl movie in the midst of its post-production phase.
El Arbi says (translated from French) that they were in the middle of editing when executives told them the film was being shelved:
“The guys from Warners told us ‘it was not a talent problem from our part or the actress, or even the quality of the movie’. They told us it was a strategic change. There was new management, and they wanted to save some money.”
Talking about their reaction to the news, the pair explained their shock at what happened, but also the overwhelming public reaction and support they received in its wake:
Fallah: “First, when I heard the news, I was shocked, I didn’t know how to react. I wanted to break stuff, cry, even laugh. I was like, ‘this is not happening.’
[But then] seeing all the support on Twitter, and even from big directors Edgar Wright and James Gunn, who sent us supportive messages, it was comforting.”
El Arbi says we “make movies for the audience, not for us” and hopes one day the movie will be released. However he admits there’s still a lot of work left to be done on the film before it could ever be released:
“[Batgirl] cannot be released in its current state. There’s no VFX, we still had to shoot some scenes. So if [Warners] wanted us to release the Batgirl movie they would need to give us the means to do it. To finish it properly with our vision.”
They were then asked if they still had some footage of the film, to which they said they had none, and the studio had blocked their access to the production’s servers:
“Fallah: No, we have nothing. Adil called and told me, ‘Go ahead! Shoot everything on your phone!’ I went on the server… Everything was blocked.
“El Arbi: We were [like]… ‘F—— s—-!’… We did not [even] keep [the scenes] with Batman in it.”
Leslie Grace, J. K. Simmons, Jacob Scipio, Brendan Fraser, and Michael Keaton all starred in the film which was shot for over four months in Glasgow.
