Production Hell - Batgirl (What REALLY Happened) 

It’s hilarious how these studios just don’t understand that if they gave what the fans wanted they’d make money hand over fist.

Such a shame Keatons Batman was wasted on this and Flash. He should have been given a Batman Beyond movie as a finale to the Burton universe. Every Hollywood studio seems to be so out of touch now, no understanding of their franchises or characters. Or audience for that matter.

I built the scale model of the fire engine at Shepperton studios. Was on set to film the action scenes. It actually looked amazing. So you can imagine how disappointed myself and others were when it got shelved.

I can’t even put into words how upset I would be if I’d worked on a film that got completely erased

To my genuine, absolute shock, that basic plot concept idea you gave ACTUALLY DOESN'T SOUND THAT BAD. I'm surprised. VERY surprised. It's a... reasonable sounding concept. Of course, it would've been utterly butchered and probably would've flopped completely; but y'know.

This was the nicest thing I have ever heard about Batgirl. They can’t say you weren’t fair.

Okay, that fire engine drifting? THAT IS AWESOME. And the fact that Yvonne Craig Batgirl always entered the room hips first is just absolutely fantastic. But that's it. It's pretty sad I find none of the BTS footage of Batgirl even remotely interesting.

This is an eye opener for me. I always assumed that a film or tv project was written and cast well in advance, budgets settled, locations secured, all of the technical staff engaged, a filming start date settled. What I’m hearing now is that a bunch of incompetent unprofessionals flap around like headless chickens in a total panic as they chop and change everything from one day to the next and demand an ever bigger budget to fix their problems. Obviously there are a lot of people in the film industry these days who aren’t up to the job.

This is hilarious. We all thought Batgirl was going to be an unmitigated joke, only for it to turn out "I mean, it wasn't bad. Rough around the edges, but could have been salvagable." But the studio was like "TACTICAL NUKE!"

Such a shame we'll never get to see Brandon Fraser as Firefly.

I had a friend who was working as an extra for the Batgirl movie, they had scenes to shoot in Glasgow, he told me there was more partying than shooting the movie and most of the concentration was at the partying and drinking.

Walter Hamada: "Christina Hodson wrote one of our biggest flops Birds of Prey... Oh I know what to do! Let's hire her to write Batgirl and the Flash as well!"

It still blows my mind that The Flash, Shazam 2, and Birds of Prey were allowed to be seen by viewers yet Batgirl wasn't. I was actually more interested in seeing Michael Keaton in this movie instead of The Flash.

I love when The Drinker does these production hell videos. The one he did on Waterworld is probably the best of them all, and I hope he does more in the future.

This story sounds very familiar to a situation a friend of mine went through some time ago. In the early 2000's, he was a lead QA manager at a small indy game development studio. They were mostly known for a handful of games released to the Xbox arcade that had been well received. Eventually, they gained that attention of a large publisher that presented a game concept they wanted the studio to develop for them. The concept appeared to match the strengths of the dev studio, so they signed the deal and began working on the game. And, as was the case with Batgirl, the publishers started sending conflicting demands for the tone and direction of the game during the final 6 months of development. The publisher made the final 6 months hell, but the studio managed to complete each milestone and deliver the finished product. However, around that time the Publisher was having its annual meeting with retailers. Remember, this was back in the early 00's before digital distribution would catch on. So, publishers were still heavily reliant on the retail conglomerates of the day. And those retailers took one look at the game, and decided that its specific niche was already over-saturated and they weren't interested in carrying it. So, with the retailers passing, the publisher just completely pulled the plug and cancelled what was already a finished game.

Personally I think the biggest problem with both Marvel and DC is that they are both constantly trying to compete with each other, bring out as much content as possible, as fast as possible instead of taking a step back and take account what all do they need for their movies. It seems like reshoots have become way too common on recent years as though they are in a rush to start production without having a finished scripts and figuring it out as they go.

What always amazes me is how poorly execs can do and retain their jobs. Even getting millions on the way out. While normal people get the axe over something minor.

"You don't need hundreds of millions of dollars to make a successful superhero film" is a message both Warner and Disney really could have used a couple of years ago. A bit sorry the movie never got released for that reason alone, now. Not that success was a given, of course, but... damn.

The way you explained the plot sounds like a movie I would've loved to watch if it actually went down that way.

Man, this truly sucks, and especially I feel really bad for all the people that worked hard on this project. I think if I would be one of those people I'd feel devastated and heavily question all the future opportunities of participating in film making.

Ok all jokes aside, the two guys having an EPIC FLAMETHROWER BATTLE on the top of a moving fire truck looked incredible.

I was expecting a story similar to what we're been hearing with MCU films. Script rewrites, reshoots, overblown budget, and set drama. The fact that NONE of those things were actually present makes the cancellation even more startling and makes me kinda wish I could see it. If nothing else, I'll bet Keaton, Fraser, and Simmons gave incredible performances.

I have been following this channel for a very long time and I have to say... It is truly inspiring how you have become a cornerstone of film reviews. You always offered thoughtful analysis, a fun narrative, and a proper assessment of plot, writing, and direction. Simply put, you applied your passion to this and set the gold standard for online film reviews.... now you are interviewing people like Russell Crowe and Chris Jericho and deconstructing films by speaking to people behind the scenes. Its been amazing watching you evolve from a talented RU-vidr to a proper influencer on pop culture. You deserve all your success Drinker. Please don't ever abandon your formula. I always look forward to your content.

This is just me, but after 30 years of working on film and tv projects, I'd be perfectly happy to go to work making a film, get paid, and then watch them tip the project over the side. I've been on several of those before. They just weren't high profile enough to get coverage.

They will give people the worst wigs ever just to make them accurate to the comics but they refuse to just cast someone that looks and acts the part enough that they don’t need a comical wig.

Well, holy crap, The Drinker just broke into investigative journalism. Good work, mate!

I saw the Bat girl movie at a test screening and there were definitely some parts that looked goofy unfinished but the movie was actually quite good. I enjoyed it, Keaton was awesome and the Batgirl actress wasn't bad at all. It's a shame they will more than likely never release this movie to the general public because the last 5 DC movies were definitely not as good as Batgirl was. Batgirl was better and Frasier as Firefly was awesome to see. Such a shame but I feel fortunate I got to see it with my own eyes.

God. This actually makes sense. You know the sad part? The one paragraph premise… sounds pretty damn good. Goes to show a decent idea can sometimes just go nowhere due to seriously bad management.

Brenden Fraser as Fire Fly looks pretty awesome not going to lie and with a voice modulator like he has in Doom patrol it could have been awesome

Im glad Drinker is big enough now that he can give us this insight. I really hope you keep making a difference and that the cinema we all love returns to its glory

Thank you very much for this video. It's easy to jump to conclusions as to why the movie was cancelled considering the track record of superhero movies in the past few years, which is why it is very much appreciated that you shine a light on what truly happened. I myself thought it was yet another of those movies that tried to appeal to nonexistant "modern audiences" so consider me surprised when I listened to what you had to report. Cheers mate!

This was probably the nicest and calmest Drinker has ever been in a video

Batgirl could have been a good movie if they had been willing to make a film that fans of the source material would enjoy. I like that they were not trying to make another sky beam to be dealt with movie. Given how it was received in test screening i wonder why this got canned, and the Flash got greenlit. If WB could go back i wonder if they would make the same decision.

Restaurant: _”Here’s your food. Enjoy your meal that you ordered”_ Customer: _”This is exactly what I wanted. I’m happy”_ ______________________________________________ Disney/Marvel/WB: _”I don’t care what you want. We’re giving you this gender bent race swapped feminist version that’s gay.”_ Customer: _”Okay, then I won’t give you my money”_ Disney/Marvel/WB: _”Why aren’t we making any money!!??”_

I've read an interesting opinion regarding scrapping movies for a tax write off. What if, in order to get the write off, the studio would have to release the movie into the public domain, in whatever state it exists when they decide do scrap it?

Well done, Will! The Stalin reference at 10:42 had me falling out of my seat with laughter. Thanks and cheers to you, mate!

Hearing a movie being torn apart by studio interfere and getting shelves when the crew knew it could still be saved is always heartbreaking.

Ironically enough, Batgirl getting canned was probably the best thing that happened to it. Had it come out, there's a good chance it would have been either hated for the changes or utterly forgotten by the public. It's now in that precious "who knows? " state

This was well done my man! I really heard your passion for film production, and movies. I expected you to beat up on it. And you took it in a good direction.

I was working in one of the shops in Glasgow that was asked to shut during the filming of this, we had just before this been used in the Indiana jones film and a number of the crew were the same, and it was really interesting to see the difference between what it was like to be closed by Disney and Warner Brothers. The only drama that happened on Batgirl was with the set dressing practical effects - there was 2 teams on Batgirl and one of the teams were more or less shut down as most of them got Covid, this meant that the other team were asked to extra shifts, there was a lot more stress on the set because of this, but this in no was to say it was a production hell, there was stress and a bit more glum faces, but they were professionals and worked hard to get the streets and buildings changed over to Gotham. Some of the painters were crazy skilled and came up with posters and shop signs in a few hours, painted on the street by hand, it was cool to see so many skilled tradesmen doing there job, and there was all so the key issue that most of these people had just got off filming Indiana and you could clearly see the difference in budget. The set builders and site managers on Indy had so much money to play with on Indy, it was crazy how much wase there was on the Disney production, and this was just from working in one location that i see this, but on the batgirl film you could see the money was tight and these people had to put in extra effort to get batgirl done. I think that the crew that had worked on Indy were still happy that had just got a big paycheque from Disney and this probably helped them motivate them self do batgirl - but the crew were in the whole friendly and efficient if not a little stressed. So i was working in my building during the filming of both films, the set security and production staff were great and i would talk away to them often - my location needed set dressed so my door was unlocked most of the time and i would talk to the set crew all the time about the film, and as my job is a little bit linked to what they were filming so they liked to have a gab about what was going on. Some of the things i remember talking about were - there film was not going to be a cinema release, as far as people were telling me on the set this was going to end up on a streaming platform, no idea what one, if i was told and i think it was long forgotten, there were filming around my location for 2 weeks and on the 2nd week there was a total buzz on the set as the first rushes were sent back and Warner Bros loved them, not just a little a lot, the crew were now talking about this would get a cinema release, if not a limited one and that there was a pencil in of a 2nd film all going well. Everyone on the set was super happy you could see that even with how much work it was, there was a chance that they would be back filming next year and it was said to me by a few people this was good because it was work that they would get the following year, not just for the local Glasgow people but the crew were from all over the UK and not all of them make super money, so any mention of more work the next year sounded good to them. There was an effort to make the best film they could, i did not know about the script until you mentioned it in your video, but there was chat about how this would be the first modern superhero film not to use Green screen in a studio, the directors seemed to have the crew on there side and there was talk about trying to make everything with practical effects as much as they could - lots of wire work and real stunts. They all so used a number of shops, offices and empty building to film in so that they would not need to use a studio - a local empty bank was used a ballroom, the Gotham chemist was/is a pet shop, the building firefly is walking out of is a empty shop. They even built firefly's warehouse base between two buildings so they could blow it up. I think going back to your video the script may not have been amazing and the directors may have not got it changed but it looked like they were going to try to make as good a film as they could and with as little green screen and cgi as they could. I never talked to any of the big actors, the girl playing batgirl was about, but i honestly am not star struck and did not really care, but everyone who approached her when she was not filming - and my god actors do a lot of standing about - said she was nice and good fun. Never seen Brendan Fraser did see his big huge car that he got driven about in, and i think the filming of this was before his big return, so this could have been first big return work. What was interesting about both films was how the local media changed there tune on what the films had done to the city - before filming we were approached by a number of news papers about what was happening but i has signed a nda agreement with both films not to talk about what was going on, but the press were on the whole positive about the jobs and money it was bring to the city and the coverage it would give to the city. After filming was over and the film got caned i started getting the press coming to my work and calling me up looking for me to bad mouth the studios and say how it had ruined my business, rubbish, the crew on both films were wonderful and they did everything they could to let me keep running my company - making sure there was no filming at 2 so i could get my mail picked up, they were great and it was a cool few months with something different going on in my life - good fun

I’m impressed that you took the time to do the proper work researching into the production. This honestly sounds like there was potential to make a decent movie from this if things worked out differently. I’m still curious to see it come out of cancellation some day

Saying "it's all Spaghetti" is a hit at how Keaton explained the multiverse in the flash

11:25 _"... it's another thing to take the blame for a film that no one even got to see"_ Man, that hits hard. You are so right. The entire situation is a tragedy for the people who *_DID_* work so hard on the film. And we can't say it' a bad movie .. because we've never seen it.

Wow actual investigative journalism from a RU-vid channel. Was not expecting that.

I would take the stance that Batgirl got the boot because it was the only film of the ones in production that the fans had reacted negativly too. Aquaman 2 only had the Amber Heard drama which wasn’t going to affect the movie by release time, Blue Beetle had no major controversy, and like you said, Flash was doing good in test screenings. I think they saw that the race swap was already beginning to look unfavorable to the public and it was only going to get worse by the time the movie released.

Explains why Glasgow had its Xmas decorations up until April

Although I don’t believe a studio should be entitled to a tax write-off for this kind of choice, I wish more studios had the balls to do so.

What's funny is I never would have even thought of watching this movie if it was released but now that it's been hidden away I really want to see it.

Deliberately lowering the price of properties to bring in corrupt developers? Where have I heard that plot before? Oh yeah - every single episode of Scooby Doo.

Now I need one of these on “Coyote vs Acme”. Incredible detective work my dear Drinker

Reminds me of the 1994 Fantastic Four Movie which was also Never Released... Yet somehow made it out to the public via bootleg DVD.

Love your "production hell" vids, almost always with more insight and honest reflection on failed and somehow-made projects anywhere outside of actual documentaries (ala "The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened?" or "Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau"). BTW, good to see new merch available, just in time for Christmas.

It’s always a good day when there’s a new production hell video!

Please do a production hell on Godzilla 1954. It’s an interesting story

I cant imagine the studio would drop it after a 61% test screening when it was basically finished... Makes me think there was an ulterior motive for the studio (wrote this comment before I saw the TAX Break segment) 🍝🍝🍝

What I like the most about these production hell videos is the valuable lessons you can learn from them as an aspiring filmmaker. From the studio politics, to the marketing costs, to the on-set attitudes and personalities clashing with each other. These videos are not just fun, but really useful.

Fantastic work, Drinker. We need to look for more interesting and informative stories like these. We all know Disney is burning. It's about time we focus on other studios

Great video and great footwork! It's weird that they insist on the movie being either dark or silly and light even though a competent filmmaker could make it both breezy and fun as well as engaging. Many superhero movies have done this

8:04 Wow, stunt guy life is wild. Riding a moving firetruck while battling with 2 flame throwers for hands, OMG. Sucks for them no one got to see it on the big screen.

Seeing this makes me want a production hell on The Flash, it's a damn shame Keaton and Sasha Calle were wasted there.

seemed like an actual interesting concept being so dark and gritty and it seemed like the cast and staff really cared about the project. would’ve been interested to see Ari’s vision

Dang man for a long while I felt like we've dodge a bullet with this one but you somehow got me to feel curious and even heartbroken over freaking current year Batgirl of all things.

They had Firefly as the villain? That's like a Spider-Man movie with Kangaroo as the main antagonist.

It's not possible to underestimate how badly Zaslav's decisions have been. This is a guy who never thought interest rates would rise. He borrowed $30 billion dollars, raised $14 billion to pay it down but now owes $45 billion. The net result is cancelling movies instead of releasing them. (Though it looks like that Coyote vs Acme movie IS going to be shopped around at least.) Bottom line: He's using the studio as a cash register, not as an entertainment company.

The insiders were clearly the Directors because Drinker goes really light on them.

Crazy how we live in a world where entire movies can vanish with no way of ever seeing them. Including those currently streaming. Without a Blu Ray or DVD release as a permanent copy

Well done sir. This was some good journalism. Too bad we won’t ever get to see this.

Please do one on Scream (1996). The cinematographer had to be fired in the final part of the film, plus there was issues with the Weinsteins trampling around.

I bet there's enough people now who want to see this film out of morbid curiosity that they could claw back some of its budget!

You need to make a production hell video on ‘The Bourne Identity.’ That was an absolute clusterfuck of a production.

If I only got to see just that chase with the fire engine, I’ll be satisfied, that scene looks awesome!

Lift weights, eat steaks, learn to negotiate, learn survival skills, read, self reflect, make babies and home school. Only way we get out of this mess, gentlemen.

I think it's interesting how Drinker has backwards access. He doesn't get in the studio's good side, he interviews in secret to get the dirt.

Check out the firetruck spewing flames at 8:05 ish. It looks like the whole flamethrower assembly with the operator in the seat topples over when the firetruck makes a turn :-).

fascinating, always like videos breaking down stuff like this, thanks man

Considering what we got with Harley Quinn, Shazam 2, Black Adam, and the Flash I really feel that nothing of any worth was lost. All it would have done was disappoint or outright piss off DC fans.... again. The only thing it had going for it was nostalgia for Keaton and a golf clap for Frasier. The rest was going to be the usual five foot nothing girl awkwardly tossing stuntmen with a grounded and serious/ make it funnier mess of a story.

Babs and Dick have long been my favorite comicbook characters. It was deeply disappointing for me when the Batgirl movie was cancelled, but I always suspected there had been more to the matter than they were telling us; no movie could have been THAT bad, specially under the eyes of a studio which releases abominations like the Birds of Prey movie. Now I finally know what actually happened and I’m sad and disappointed all over again, but I can at least let sleeping dogs lay on the matter. A heartfelt thanks for sharing this, Drinker.

Ya know….when I sent that superchat telling the directors the movie needed to focus on Fear, and Batgirl being an unstoppable, uncompromising juggernaut in the eyes of Gotham’s criminals…..I had no idea they already finished most of the movie. They probably shit their pants at what I said and didn’t even have it occur to them to do it like that.

Out of all the production hells this is probably the saddest and most unfortunate one. It's not like Zaslav is wrong in his assesment of the DC cinematic universe, it is however sad to see all of the crew's hard work go down the drain.

Its just crazy how this film was literally someones vision for the DCEU but got scrapped and rebooted AGAIN. Like what the hell goes on in WARNER BROS?!

I would love to see some more production hell videos on projects that ended up really good. The Predator video is one of my favorite videos.

Great video, very interesting, appreciate the work you put into it

I love that Batman has a sick motorcycle, and Batgirl was riding a used 600cc crotch rocket. Perfect!

I have to say, that fight scene on the truck with the flamethrowers looked really awesome! I wish we'll be able to see this film one day. Regardless of how the film turned out, we sometimes forget how many film industry workers - from the biggest directors to the rendom 3nd lighting assitants - work their asses off in order to give us art and enteraintememt. So for what is worth, thank you, Batgirl cast & crew, for your hard work. I hope all of you will be making movies and find sucsess in future projects.

It's baffling the amount of money put into this soulless projects that could be put into passion projects from indie movie makers with actual good ideas and direction and the will to make them true ... One can hope that is the future

Nicely done video! Fair but firm, I really feel for the actors, writers, and crew.

Ngl. I hope this movie gets released SOMEHOW. I'm genuinely curious to see how this would've turned out. The Story didn't sound too bad honestly. Thanks for making this dude

Interesting to hear that the test screenings weren't as awful as we'd heard. I saw stories that some audience members thought they were being pranked with a fake movie as part of a late night TV skit.

I regret I'll never know how much money the _Batgirl_ movie would have lost.

Here's another movie for a potential Prodoction Hell video: Casino Royale (1967). The behind the scenes stories are quite amazing, involving multiple directors and actors who caused problems on set.

Drinker, you need to do a production hell video on The Exorcist, a production that may have literally been plagued by hell.

This journalistic content and humor is what I'm here for, well done.

Remember, the movie was FINISHED. So no matter how bad it was, the studio would have made back some amount of money by releasing it. It would have probably made SOME money back from people that don't pay attention and just saw the 'Batgirl' name. With a worldwide release it would have made at least $100 million even if it were a horrific mess. The fact that they willingly gave up ~$100 million makes me morbidly curious just HOW UNBELIEVABLY BAD it was that they decided the trash can was better.

The problem with this film was: a) again they did not know how to do a cohesive DCU. b) did not look really good, closer to the quality of a direct to DVD film. c) needed lots of rework, more scenes, and postproductions adding to the budget. d) the film did not have good reviews and honestly nothing we have seen looks remotely good. e) the studio would have had to spend tens of millions on advertisement to never recoup the investment. Honestly this is the easiest write off of all that WB did last year.

Wow! Very interesting. Great work Drinker! 👍🏿

RIP Yvonne Craig. Great to see some of those old clips again.

This is a very unique Production Hell video where instead of looking at online article sources, your channel at this point in time has enough credibility for Batgirl's production crew to give you permission for private interviews where you report their anonymous experiences here. I will not get used to it, but I am still wondering if you are willing to do this again for Marvel's Ant-Man trilogy, or for The Flash and The Marvels, the movies that finally ended the DC Cinematic Universe, or pushed the longer-lived Marvel Cinematic Universe into late-stage panic mode to delay and revise their current plans. Still, I know you can make Production Hell videos for all three of these different movie topics without doing what you just did to give us more clear information about the unseen Batgirl film.😉 So thank you for doing this for those of us who always wanted to know more about Batgirl. Only a Production Hell video made with anonymous interviews from the production crew of The CW's live-action Powerpuff series that never was, could possibly top this video with your anonymous interviews from the production crew of Batgirl. November 14, 2023, 4:19pm

Honestly the plot seems interesting to me. Just grounded enough to be a fresh change of pace in the genre. I think I wouldve enjoyed it.

That they apparently cast on merit for once, aside from being shocking, tells me that this movie might have at least been enjoyable to watch for the actors, if not for the story. With the extra context, it's easy to see why the cast and crew were so guttered when the film was canned. I'd have felt the same.

I truly hope that the full movie eventually gets leaked. It must be astonishingly bad, it fascinates me.