The Untold Story of the ABANDONED Batgirl Movie 

Which ABANDONED movie should we cover next?

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 got the chance to play a firefighter in this movie (the directors wanted professional firefighters to keep it authentic) and the scenes I got to work on were amazing, the movie was also going to introduce Robin to the DC Universe. Got to meet a lot of the principal cast and they were all buzzing for the movie to come out. It's a shame really, with Brendan Fraser winning an Oscar it would've only elevated the movie

Very bold of Zaslov to hide away an unfinished film instead of allowing it to be finalized and released for public opinion. If they really wanted to save money on an unreleasable film, they should've cancelled The Flash.

Considering the initial screening of BATMAN V. SUPERMAN was supposedly a big hit among Warner Bros. executives, I can't say I really trust their perspective of what "unreleasable" is.

I recall the majority of the online community gearing up to hate this movie long before it was to be released and then, when it was suddenly cancelled, everyone suddenly *_wanted_* this movie.

Brenden Frasier as Firefly? Gotta admit, I'd want to watch that movie.

I actually live in Glasgow, part of my daily routine involved walking through the Botanic gardens. So I remember when they sectioned off an area of the park, presumably to use the abandoned underground train station there. It was quite the sight, and after they were done, I checked the station to find they had thoroughly cleaned the place, removing all the rubbish and plants that had accumulated there. To put in all that hard work, only for some bigwig to just toss it all away… it just isn’t right.

Warner Discovery claimed so many IP's and projects to tax write offs, it's criminal. Final Space was the one that hit me the hardest.

They're apologizing for pirating their own movie??? That is so sad.

Blaming the crew and cast for a financial decision was abysmal.

As a filmmaker this makes me furious! I hate money grubbing executives like David Zaslov

Just imagine the actress who played batgirl how she feels?😢😮 she got to be a superhero in a movie, but not only does she not get too, but no one else is able to see how it turns out.

My heart goes out to the Directors. Their names on top to be viewed by the public as making such a bad movie it was scrapped. Because they won't say definitively, the public will always view it as such. Feel bad for them. It might even be the case but at least some people could have loved it and defended it. Currently, there's no other optic to the public other than it was trash.

I worked on the batgirl movie, im actually in this video at 15:55 and again at 16:05 😂 there were some great set pieces in it, im sure it wouldn't have been any worse received than a lot of modern superhero movies, but unfortunately if WB want to make movies to keep in vaults its their money 🤷🏻‍♂️ good video!

WOW, I've never seen this before - As of 10/12/23 with 80k views The "Most Replayed" spike is actually your comercial read for Frame Voyager with the internet Troll - Good work on the Troll - he is a dashing character ;-)

You guys just keep getting better. Loving this new series!

Ive always been a DC Comics fan, and was pretty excited to see this flick cause of Brendan Frasier his come back with Doom Patrol and things I bet he was gonna crush Firefly...sad to know we will never see it.

The production company treated the extras so badly that the agency I'm with refuses to work with them on anything again.

WBD cancelled Batgirl for the tax write off, but also because the film was started under Hamada who was planning to erase the old DCEU/Snyderverse. Initially, after Discovery took over, WBD was going to go back to the old DCEU instead of Hamada's erasure, and Batgirl didn't fit into that model. Between that and the money, they decided to axe Batgirl. WBD later went on to reverse its' decision and abandon the DCEU with the Gunn reboot. A bad decision that has brought them nothing but grief. DC seems to be cursed, and Warner Brothers seems hopelessly incompetent.

Any media that gets used like this as a tax write off should immediately enter the public domain. We just paid for it, give it to us.

The only film they were producing that i was actually looking forward to was cut and turned into a tax write off. Meanwhile the 3 other films that all were supposed to restructure the DCEU flopped miserably.

I love when you make those cool intros and set pieces. That add so much more to the high-quality production and top-notch editing of your videos. This channel is going places. :P

I think only two things to consider: - Warner apparently likes to lose money, come on, at least companies like Paramount had the guts to sell movies that didnt worked well at screen tests (like Cloverfield Paradox or Annihilation) to Netflix at least recover the money. - Even when the film wouldnt go anywhere, seeing Brendan Fraser back in action movies would have worked

I was so disappointed that this movie wasn't released. Batgirl has always been one of my favourite characters

The Batman (1966) TV Series came out 6MO before the Batman (1966) Movie by the way. The movie was not first as stated in this documentary.

The problem with Batgirl is that it's existence in DCEU "canon" relied on the Flash's original ending staying in place (Supergirl replacing Superman, and Michael Keaton's Batman turning up when Barry returns to the future, replacing Batfleck). The thing is, the people in control were replaced midway through production and decided to change direction, Keeping Affleck and bringing back Cavill's Superman (hence his appearance at the end of Black Adam). Flash got reshot, so did Aquaman if rumours are correct, but Keaton was so fundamental to Batgirl's existence that it was just cheaper to write it off, I think. (To the people shouting "Why couldn't they cancel The Flash?" Movies are often presold to cinemas. When you've gotten to that point, you're pretty much locked in, and it kinda HAS to come out.) ....Then James Gunn came in, decided to spin the DC movies into yet another direction and Flash's ending got reshot AGAIN (The George Clooney Ending). Talk about throwing good money away after bad.

Bit of a long one, but hear me out - here’s my theory on why Batgirl was scrapped - the casting of JK Simmons as Gordon AND the casting of Michael Keaton as Batman. Because of these two casting in the same movie, it did not fit either narrative of the two active versions of DC universes that were currently active at the time David Zaslav took over Warner Bros. During the production of Batgirl, DC at WB was in a horrible state. The heads in charge were having a civil war over how they were going to proceed with shows and movies set in the DC universe. The Arrowverse (apart from the Superman & Lois series, which despite being on the bubble was coming back for a 2nd season at the time, and was confirmed to be a different universe to the Arrowverse) was coming to an end. The DC app shows were winding down. Matt Reeves ‘The Batman’ movie had been fairly successful in setting up a new Batman (which was originally intended to be a Ben Affleck Batman movie set in the Snyderverse with Bruce Wayne facing attack from Deathstroke - as setup in both versions of Justice League in a cameo played by Joe Manganiello, until Reeves was brought in to replace Affleck as director and retooled it into his own version of Batman, recasting the role with Robert Pattenson as a different version as well as casting Jeffrey Wright to the role of Jim Gordon). Whats more, because The Batman was a success, the go ahead was given to create a show exclusively for HBO Max, following Colin Farrell’s Penguin, set in that universe. As the DCU, what would become known as the Snyderverse, was not performing as successfully as producers hoped, despite them forcing out Snyder from his Justice League movie (I believe under the guise of using a family tragedy as a reason so the executives didn’t look bad) and bringing in Joss Whedon fresh from a (somewhat) successful stint on Marvel’s MCU Avengers movies. Some eXecutives at DC/WB hated Snyder’s versions of the universe and its characters - after the disappointing performance of Batman Vs Superman, they sprung into damage control mode, removing Snyder from JL as mentioned, and radically altering David Ayer’s upcoming Suicide Squad movie, bringing in music video editors to re-edit the tone of the movie, add in numerous hit songs to create a movie to sell a soundtrack album inspired by how successful Marvel had been with a similar soundtrack release to the first Guardians Of The Galaxy movie. When Snyder tried to come back, they did everything they could to prevent him from finishing his cut of Justice League, until they were overruled by their then owners at the time - AT&T, who were looking for more material for the HBO Max streaming platform. So I believe a plan was hatched with the upcoming Flash movie, which used elements of the Flashpoint story,, with Barry Allen accidentally changing the past resulting in Bruce being killed instead of his father Thomas Wayne, and Thomas Wayne instead becoming Batman. So in the chaos of the DC civil war, they changed it, taking the opportunity to bring back their preferred Batman, Michael Keaton. What’s more, I bet they intended to KEEP Keaton once Flashpoint ended., getting rid of ‘Batfleck’ once and for all. Is it starting to add up yet? Batgirl was collateral damage, a casualty of in-fighting at DC/WB with elements trying to erase elements of the Snyderverse they didn’t like. Then along comes David Sazlav - taking control of a company with a brand - Batman - a very lucrative brand, but one that is starting to maybe suffer from brand liquidation through too many active versions in recent history (7 different actors - Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney, Bale, Affleck & Pettensin- in movies, a version - albeit using a version of ‘Hush’ in The Arrowverse, an older version in Titans) there was just too many at once that everything was getting muddled - which is what happened in Batwoman. The casting of the 3 characters of Barbara Gordon/Batwoman, Jim Gordon, and Bruce Wayne/Batman seem to be from 3 different versions, which would just confuse an average audience. I believe this was an attempt to right the ship by removing so many multiple versions of the same character, and Batwoman did not fit any of those versions because it tried to fit to 3 different ones at once.

Wow, as a filmmaker I would honestly argue it’s nothing close to piracy for the creators of the film to want to retain a copy of their work. While I know this is sadly not the intensely corporate version of copyright we sadly need to live with, moralistically this is truly despicable. The fact that the studios can without warning pull all access, that I would argue is creative thief!

Don't forget about the stunt double who is sueing Warner Bros for almost "dy1ng" from this movie, brutal

The funniest thing about the Batwoman cw series is that it intended to prove that a woman can do anything a man can do and it almost killed poor Ruby Rose. It turns out Stephen Amel could do a lot of things Ruby Rose couldn't do.

Note: The Adam West Batman TV show actually spawned the film, not the other way round as you suggested.

As a individual who relied on comic books, specifically DC's characters and brand, for not ONLY entertainment in my youth, but - to improve immeasurably my reading/comprehension skills; it is SHAMEFUL what WB'S has done to the entire IP of the DC theatrical motion picture tableau!

I am dissapointed in what happened tor 2 reasons. The first is Batgirl/Barbara Gordon is one of my favorite female characters in comics and I would love to see a good live action version of her on the big screen. The 2nd is why the hell would WB film an entire film that they didn't deem worthy of release does the studio not review scripts and plans before they green light projects for millions of dollars. I guess making decisions like this we can see why WB is millions of dollars in debt.

By looking at and listening to those "directors" you kinda understand why the movie was going to be shit.

Damn, this is the first time I've ever heard of a cancelling of a movie would lead to an investigation by the government. Like that's so bad to have as part of an industry's history because the government have gotten involved

Another awesome video thank you for the top notch infotainment 🙌

Wait how did you not mention the Birds of Prey tv show Batgirl/ Oracle, that costume was epic!

Let's not kid ourselves. The movie would have bombed hard. The DCEU was a hot mess and wasn't ready for a Batgirl movie yet. I wouldn't mind seeing it streamed though. Just to know what could have been.

I might be interested in watching this movie, if it were free, and I was laid up in the hospital with a broken leg, and I was heavily drugged with pain killers, and ...

I've met someone who has footage in a folder from the movie. He helped with production. It's a shame.

Good call by Zaslav to cancel it, the test screenings showed that it would have bombed at the box office. However I wish that Flash was cancelled as well.

Luckily we have the absolute masterpiece that is "The Batman" by Matt Reeves. It's so good i almost cant believe it got made.

Hot take here, all these fucking movies about bat family fail because their either kill batman, make him irrelevant, or have him somehow not help. A good way to do these would be a series of movies for each bat family member as a showcase, dealing with their own villain in search for batman who went missing. Then all culmination with batman movie, which also would be a reveal of who is cast as batman. This way everyone gets their time to shine and also have it make sense. Cause lets be real, there is a reason why almost no one gives a shit about new cap america after we already had steve rogers.

@11:54, one of the directors is saying “there were no scenes, there were no reshoots.” Reshoots cost money. WB didn’t want to spend any more money on Batgirl. Not for reshoots, distribution, marketing. Nothing.

I always wondered, could WB just release the film for free? Can’t pay tax on losses if you don’t sell it right?

There is a lot to consider here, but arguably it is very fair to say that if the test screenings had been positive, if the movie had been as great as everyone involved claimed, then it wouldn't have been scrapped, and certainly not for some tax reasons - the P&L here would never make sense since superhero flicks can rake in tons of money, and even at a break even point it would make more sense, would have to look at the tax deduction specifics to make this calculation, but even for USA's lax tax laws I don't see this as being logical. This was also on the back of Brendan Frasier's return and Keaton as Batman again, which would certainly have gotten tickets sold just for that. I have a feeling that not only was the movie far worse than what we realise, it possibly contained content that made executives fear that it wouldn't sell in places like China & India(huge markets for superhero content). Good to keep in mind that the WW2 and Black Widow had performed poorly and with lackluster reviews criticising story and messaging of both films - to put in a different perspective, the two most well-known established female led hero films that had recently come out, both didn't do well. Imagine if Batgirl had similar story-beats, or message-beats, someone might see parallels and think well that didn't go so well last time. So... If we assume that the studio had an unsalable product, which after marketing costs and general distribution, they knew would never break even, then it would make sense that they would scrap it for a tax deduction. However if the film was sell able for a profit, it wouldn't make sense, also considering the negative backlash this had on the studio and company.

What a shame. This movie has some really cool practical stunts, it's street level, it's not full of CGI, it looks like a continuation of the Keaton Batverse. This should have been released to streaming, or syndicated to CW or something.

The issue with the film is the same horrible issue with the failed TV show. Hence, one of thousands of cringe inducing, eye rolling lines, " I'm not about to let a man take credit for a woman's work." Oh brother. And I would contend that the disdain for the film during the test screening went beyond the idea of an unfinished film given that most test screenings are unfinished films. Audiences are given that the heads up before they view it.

Warner Bros has been making alot of bad choices lately it really upsets me

it boggles my mind that they cancelled this movie instead of The Flash. After all of Ezra Millers bulshit I wouldn've thought they'd bury it.

Having actually watched The Flash, I have to say I think WB made the wrong decision here and I honestly think it was made out of fear. Despite Wonder Woman being one of the better DC films, I think they didn't want a repeat of what happened with Captain Marvel.

Thank you for highlighting details publicly covered in interviews and articles. One day the actual untold story may be told and not just alluded to in a clickbaity-title.

I really hope the movie gets leaked, the special effects wouldn't be finished but we could still judge it on everything else

One thing I hate when people talk about this movie is that, they make the mistake in thinking this was the only near or even completed movie to get shelved. No, in fact, its not even close, with some thinking the first movie to get finished but not released happened way back in the 1930s. Pluto Nash tends to be a good example. Even though it was released (and made $9 million dollars total) it was supposed to have never been released with even star Eddie Murphy having disowned the film long before it came out. Now yes, it did come out, but only after sitting on a self for years, and only because the studio wanted the loss for a tax write off. So even back in the 90s, this was a thing. In fact, RU-vid has a number of never released films on it that got leaked after studios collpased. I think a few of the rumors were correct. 1. It was cancled because it actually wasn't that good 2. It was cancled because all of DCs female centered properties sans Wonder Women had flopped up to that point, and 3. They were going to reboot the entire universe anyway, so why finish making a movie that was going to effectively be trash anyway. But there was a 4th reason. Early rumors had it they wanted to reboot the origin for Batgirl in the newer Gunn lead universe. So they were going to essentually bring these people back, but with that new universe in mind...but I think that idea is DOA after The Flash. Honestly, and I know this sounds sexist, but the only reason anyone cared about Batgirl being cut was because it stared a woman at a time when women were supposedly not getting the screen time. That's why. There were dozens of other shows left on the floor by this one even and no one cared. But this is life in Hollywood, so despite people feelings being hurt, it's nothing new.

wait, didn't Batgirl already have a film debut? what about ''Batman & Robin''? that film had her

Oh my God I had no idea that the batwoman CW show got three seasons I don't know whether to be impressed or annoyed we all know it should have been scrapped after one

Everytime I read an article about Batgirl and saw screenshots, I 100% thought it was a TV show. It didn't look like movie-quality outfits (yes, I've read Batgirl from her mid New 52 reboot to the Batgirl of Burnside and loved the new look and character change) and I assumed it was just gonna be a new direction for the Batwoman show. The only thing that shocked me about the cancellation was that it was supposed to be a movie. I mean, the darker Synder-verse is just not really the best universe for that lighthearted version the character was based on.

The 1966 Batman TV show aired first then they made the movie the following year. Not the other way around...

Unlike the Snyder cut, Batman fans were protesting FOR this to be canceled.. 😅😂

DC just keeps shooting itself in the foot.

I've read the synopsis for Bat-Girl and it was definitely a mid streaming film imo. It would have done fine on streaming but would have died in cinemas like Shazam, Black Adam and The Flash did. Why the overly specific focus on cancelling Bat-Girl from WBD remains a mystery

Anyone know the name of that tune at the 0:54 mark? It seems so familiar and it's driving me nuts not being able to place where I've heard it before.

I'm a project manager (IT) and I've seen my share of projects what SHOULD have been canceled but so much money has been spent (or sunk) into them that nobody has the balls to actually cancel them. It's not easy going to a team or stakeholder and telling them "I'm trashing all of your efforts" even when that would be the right thing to do. Now I know nothing about this movie and so don't know if this was the right or wrong call (or if it's even so simple) but I have to say from my career that it does indeed take a bold and courageous person to cancel a project when it's very advanced.

I'm just so happy they made a great decision here........................

Justice for my fellow Belgians. They are really great directors and when I saw their movie 'Rebel' I got even more sad thet batgirl was cancelled, since Rebel is one of my favourite movies of all time.

I really struggle to believe this movie was THAT bad. At it's worse it was no more bad than a slightly dull superhero movie, and plenty of those have been released! But it would have been someone's favourite movie, and it's a shame that it's never seen the light of day.

Yvonne Craig is a goddess! I had the privilege of meeting her at ComicCon, and she even signed one if my Batgirl drawings! She was kind and graceful, and just everything I could have hoped for in that fleeting encounter! Batgirl remains one of my all time favourite characters, but I owe that love to the original live action Batgirl! ❤

Pretty frustrating because I was actually looking forward to seeing Batgirl. And all the little behind the scenes stuff that I've seen, or just on set photos and in camera work all looked pretty good. They had really cool, grungy set designs as well. What a waste.

Batgirl has more name recognition than Blue Beetle. They axed the wrong movie. Don't get me wrong, this movie would have also bombed at theaters but not as much as Blue Beetle.

WB screwed up Superman II by firing Donner, WB screwed up Batman with the lighter Batman Forever, WB now screwed up then they screwed up Affleck's Batman movie, then they abandoned DCEU right when it was getting good & I was super excited to see more Keaton

Warner Bros executives Ann Sarnoff & her lackeys Tobey Emmerich + Walter Hamada were going full M-She-U with Warner Bros properties. Not only were they the ones chomping at the bit to get rid of Snyder, they wanted to replace Batman with Batgirl, Superman with Supergirl, and of course keep Wonder Woman. They're also the ones who kept Dwayne The Rock Johnson from having his Black Adam versus Superman movie from coming to fruition for years, wouldn't even let him go on social media to hype it up. They even had that classic Hollywood move of replacing a white redhead with a black person for Batgirl. Everything I'm told about the people who saw the funeral screening of the Batgirl movie was that it was like a long CW show with one big set piece at the end. Michael Keaton's Batman was there to train Batgirl to be his replacement, because of course this is Hollywood. Just take a look at how they replace Iron Man with Iron Heart to gauge how successful that forced diversity "passing of the torch" is

Tax write offs surely have been a major factor for the decision to can Batgirl but the quality (or lack thereof) of the movie surely is as important a factor as the write offs. If WB had been convinced that the movie was going to a big hit, they surely would have released it. But they doubted that and did not want to invest another $100 - 150m into marketing for a movie of subpar quality. Bad Boys III definitely looked (at times) very cheap at pretty much the same budget as Batgirl (granted salaries of main actors were pretty high I suspect)

Great video. Well done.

This should outright be said: All evidence of his movie's cancellation all points to James Gunn. It's no secret Gunn was the one who ordered the ending of Flash reshot and it's also no secret Gunn flat out gave a interview explaining he got Flash reshot because he didn't want to give any false promises. Those false promises for those unaware was that both Sasha's Supergirl and Keaton's Batman was suppose to be alive and well. We know this is 100% true because the onset photos of Sasha's Supergirl and Keaton outside the courthouse where Flash ended can be found online. This was later suppose to lead to the Batgirl movie and a solo elseworld Supergirl movie. So this movie's cancellation has literally zero to do with it's quality. It could've been the best superhero movie ever made and Gunn would've still cancelled it. Why? Because he wanted the DCEU dead as quickly a possible so he can get his DC universe off the ground as fast as possible. So this movie's cancellation was nothing more than Gunn playing favourites just like all the nepotism casting he's been doing for his DC universe.

The media and audience would’ve murdered this film online if it released and didn’t hit their lowest of expectations though lol

Utter garbage movie concept, glad they scrapped it. Too bad Disney hasn't made that decision with new Snow White. Flash being scapped should have happened as well.

Rest assured it would have been bad- REAL BAD. If it was bad enough to get cancelled by the executives, it would have been like tear gas in the theater if had actually been released.

They knew it was shit.... so they cancelled it. The end

It couldn’t have been worse than the flash. This just seems like sexism taking over when tough decisions have to be made. Cancel the female superhero film because it’s not great, instead of cancel the dude superhero film because it’s actually bad

I think we dodged another woke bullet tbh

1:50--Per Wikipedia, "The film [ _Batman,_ from 1966] hit theaters two months after the last episode of the first season of the television series." I've heard this from other sources before. If I recall right, the movie was made for the non-US market, as an introduction to the series.

You forgot to mention batgirl's appearance in the Batman and Robin movie. I mean I don't blame you for forgetting, but if you want to be accurate then, you know...

One director was getting married and the other was at a graveyard visiting his grandparents? Oh come on lol. Bit of a stretch there "This just in, The third director was boarding a rocket to mars when he found out the horrific news"

Saved us the agony of that masterpiece 😅

I didn’t even know that they were gonna do a Batgirl Film, I always love batgirl as a Kid, Yet I was sad because it was my favorite superhero, and I feel sad for the Actress Leslie Grace and the other actors who were casted in the film.

The Synder Cut was AMAZING! Infinitely better than the original release!

I'm glad they canned it. If it's bad don't release bad work.

I feel sad for the people who worked on it but for what i've seen of the movie I would not watch it. The suit doesn't look good and it has generic vibes

1:48 Wasn't the tv show first, then the movie? Batwoman and original Batgirl were a response to Fredric Wertham's book Seduction of the Innocent. Could Batgirl be shown on Discovery Plus or would that not be allowed due its right off status

"John strainer seems like a guy who understands sarcasm" John: .......FALSE!

Saw the screening it was HORRIBLE! the biggest WOKE crap you could imagine, Be glad it wasnt released, same for Snow Brown Formally Snow White

Probably for the best. My guess is the film was so aggressively woke it became a parody of itself angering both audiences.

In all fairness, this is not anything new. Scoob 2 was also cancelled and it was also in post production. There's also a movie Jamie Foxx directed and a Netflix film that were in post but they got cancelled and yet a big deal was made about Batgirl. My thoughts on why I will not bring up here and leave it at that. Honestly, given the movies we got with DC outside Joker and Nolan's first two Batman films, their track record isn't the greatest and Batgirl looked like more of the same IMO.

People need to shut up about this nonsense. No matter your sex or race, as long as You're the one that can do the job the best

2018: "Whedon left cause he couldn't come up with a vision for the film." That's kind of a problem... hiring a Director for a film before they even have any idea *how* they're going to do it...

I hope it gets leaked and sells tons of bootleg discs. F*** Discovery WB.

Lord, imagine getting this news on your wedding or visiting family. Just, what?

That Rolling Stones album that you have next to the Beatles didn’t come out until late 1970s 10 years later after the back road TV series

There seems like some things wrong here, even a casual fan like myself wld know. 1st, wasnt the Batman 66movie after the 1st and 2nd season? 2nd, Batwoman showed up in the tv show birds of prey wwaayy before the latest cw version...