“Bad Boys for Life” filmmakers Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah were out promoting their new Syrian war drama “Rebel” recently when they were asked about a project they were kind of adjacent to – Andy Muschietti’s “The Flash” film.
The recent DC tentpole was a bomb, taking in just $268.5 million worldwide from a $200 million budget along with mixed reviews from critics. At least it was finished and released theatrically.
The same can’t be said for “Batgirl”. The pair famously directed the $90 million film, which was originally slated to premiere on HBO Max but, in very early post-production a little over a year ago, it was infamously shelved by the studio as a tax write-off.
Originally, the plan was to premiere “Batgirl” after “The Flash” and continue Michael Keaton’s revived run as Batman/Bruce Wayne. That never happened, and Adil tells Insider that watching “The Flash” was a sad experience for them:
“We watched it, and we were sad. We love director Andy Muschietti and his sister Barbara, who produced the movie. But when we watched it, we felt we could have been part of the whole thing.
We didn’t get the chance to show ‘Batgirl’ to the world and let the audience judge for themselves. Because the audience really is our ultimate boss and should be the deciders of if something is good or bad, or if something should be seen or not.
Our movie was very different than ‘The Flash’. That has a big fantasy component, ours was more grounded. More like Tim Burton’s Gotham City.”
Bilall says the film’s shelving was the “biggest disappointment of our careers”. Despite all that happened, they would still direct another DC tentpole for James Gunn and Peter Safran if given the chance. Adil says:
“Our love for DC, Batman, Batgirl, Gotham City, it’s so big that, as fans, we could never say no to another project. If we got another chance to be part of it, we’d do it. We didn’t get our day in court. We still want to make our case.”
James Wan’s “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” will be the final pre-Gunn/Safran DC film to be released, with that movie arriving in cinemas in December.
