Kevin Feige emailed support to Batgirl directors after film was shelved by Warner Bros.
James Gunn and Edgar Wright also reached out, revealed co-director Adil El Arbi on Instagram
Aux News Batgirl
Warner Bros.’ Batgirl film may be a fallen hero as of now, but rest assured she will not be forgotten. The superhero film’s co-director Adil El Arbi revealed on Instagram that some very well known names in Hollywood have thrown their support behind the team after Warner Bros. decided to shelve the $90 million feature, including an email from the ball-cap-wearing-superhero himself, Kevin Feige.
“My friends, I had to reach out and let you know we are all thinking about you both,” wrote Feige in an email sent to Arbi and Batgirl co-director Bilall Fallah. “Because of the wonderful news about the wedding (congrats!) and the disappointing news about Batgirl. Very proud of you guys for all the amazing work you do and particularly Ms. Marvel of course! Can’t wait to see what is next for you. Hope to see you soon.”
Along with Feige, Arbi posted an Instagram Story that recognized Last Night In Soho’s Edgar Wright and The Suicide Squad’s James Gunn for their “kind words and experience” given to the duo.
“Thanks for all the messages of support all over the world,” wrote Arbi on Instagram. “Shoutout directors Edgar Wright and James Gunn, your kind words and experience mean a lot and help us through this difficult period.”
Prior to the Instagram posts, the movie’s filmmakers issued a statement on Warner Bros decision to not release the film, saying they were “saddened and shocked” by the news. “We still can’t believe it,” wrote Arbi and Fallah in the shared post. “As directors, it is critical that our work be shown to audiences, and while the film was far from finished, we wish that fans all over the world would have had the opportunity to see and embrace the final film themselves. Maybe one day they will insha’Allah.”
Before joining together on Batgirl, the two directors had spent time working on two episodes of the MCU series Ms. Marvel. Along with directing the pilot and second episode of Snowfall, Arbi and Fallah previously collaborated on 2020's Bad Boys For Life.
48 Comments
Uh… okay?
I know things have gone downhill, but the site’s tagline is still “Pop culture obsessives writing for the pop culture obsessed.” This isn’t, like, out of bounds.
Right? What was the point of that comment?
What was the point of this article?
To relate a bit of pop culture news. You know, on this website that’s about people obsessing about pop culture?
I guess I just think calling it news is stretching it. Now I know for next time though!
Why did you click on the headline?
I expected there to be more to the email.
What did you expect?
An open invitation to direct a feature film for Marvel Studios or something.
I mean, they just wrapped a Marvel project that went well, so they are definitely in the preferred, pre-vetted director list, but an “open invitation” isn’t really a thing. If he’d sad that, it would have been the headline.
I don’t know what to tell you. I thought the headline was teasing something interesting or funny. And the news was that they really just got an email from Kevin Feige. As you point out, they worked on a Marvel show already, so I would be surprised if this was their first email from the Kev-ster.Oh well. I know for next time.
Granted it’s not a groundbreaking story, but it is what the headline suggested.
Sure. I just would’ve filed it under “Good Job Internet!” instead of “Newswire.”
What should you want AV Club to write about? The July jobs report?
Calm down, bruv.
Would hope they ran this by Feige first. I wouldn’t really like it if someone took a private e-mail like that and screenshot it for the public without asking.
Everyone involved knows how the game is played, Feige most of all, and is aware that this is intended to be a public interaction even if it poses as a private one.
Just saying if it was me, I’d never assume someone wants their note published – I’d ask. Feige didn’t write anything inflammatory, he easily could have posted publicly himself if that is what he wanted to do.I remember a story from a few years back about a letter Anthony Hopkins wrote to Bryan Cranston being posted to social media and him being upset by it.
i think you’re just looking for something to worry about here. this is a PR move in hollywood, not a real personal email.
This is a boon Disney, honestly. Discovery’s blowing up the pipeline through which creatives can be developed within Warner, and is no longer creating content meant to drive streaming subscriptions.Disney’s main competitor has thrown in the towel, and Netflix is teetering on the edge of irrelevancy, because they generate quality mostly by accident while greenlighting shows that can most charitably be described as… baffling.The streaming wars may be over sooner than I’d anticipated.
Disney winning the streaming wars rhymes a whole lot with Churchill’s “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other one’s we’ve tried”.
Hah! Good one, and I agree. I just didn’t expect them to win by doing the bare minimum and letting the competition implode.
Just a few successful steps in a few powerfully popular franchises goes a long way these days.
Insert Jon Lovitz Wedding Singer gif
Sorry, I’m behind. Which Marvel movies has Churchill cameoed in?
Love democratically starving Indians. At least it wasn’t done by a dictatorship!
Netflix canned the exec who was greenlighting everything early this summer. They have pivoted back to greenlighting only a handful of better things.
Hey, Netflix is still the champ at importing weirdly interesting gloomy Danish dramas too!
Disney should buy the movie for 100 million and then distribute it and easily recoup that money.
I know this is untrue but it would be funny as hell.
That is how you get The Purge timeline. Someone in the theater shouts out “Why is that Jameson guy working with Bat Girl but not Spider-Man?” This is stupid.” Crypto nerd snaps and kills them. Crypto-Nerd buys his way out of jail and then buys a few politicians in Texas.Boom! The Purge.
Man, sure must be nice to be Disney and just watch your main competition repeatedly shoot themselves in the dick.Sure there was the one flubb with James Gunn that let DC poach him for a bit, but then the universe righted itself.
Kudos to James Gunn for playing that just right. Now he gets to play in BOTH their sandboxes.At least until next week when Discovery fires him and cancels all his DC projects because for the same price they can shoot 758 episodes of Ice Road Toddler Makeovers: Deadliest Home Repairs.
Eh, ICTM:DHR is over-rated. I prefer “My 600lb Midget Swamp Wedding”
Can we have more shows where Americans move to Europe and – conveniently! – all the house prices and rental amounts are in US dollars?
And even that flubb scored for the audience because we got Peacemaker out of it and he still gets GotG 3 anyway!
The GotG3 thing doubly works in our favor as it gave us time to get tired of Pratt and then not-so-tired of him.
I don’t know, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of being tired of Chris Pratt. Does “prat” mean the same thing in American?
Not that I’m doubting Feige, but I always feel like there’s at least some angle when it comes to these types of interactions.
Perhaps Squirrel girl conference is not that far along?
Identity Pandering > QualityYour 15 minutes are up.
They did direct two episodes of Ms. Marvel, so it’s not totally out of the realm for him to reach out.
But it would be hilarious if they are named directors for an MCU project now.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a bunch of complete unknowns under the Directed By credits of WB films in the next few years. What established director is going to want to work with a company that sees creatives as a liability and which is prone to cancel your film after it’s completely finished? Even newbie directors will probably be inclined to stay away. WB is going to have a hard time luring in talent with that sort of culture.Anyway, next summer look for Justice League 2: Aquaman Goes Hawaiian! directed by David Zaslav’s barista.
You mean Achmed Goes Hawaiian. He is still a barista.
I know AVC’s a shell of its old self but it’s darkly heartwarming that flattering items on Kevin Feige are bred into the bones of the site
There’ve also been a couple of articles this week about wretched working conditions for people working on special effects for MCU projects, if that’s more your thing.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of talent from WB jumps ship, if they don’t get fired first. Disney could snatch up a lot of that talent.Zaslav specifically said he’s cutting WB animation. What if Disney hired the writers of Young Justice, Harley Quinn, the DCAU and DC animated movie writers. They could get Greg Weisman in to reboot Spectacular Spider-Man and Gargoyles. Get Bruce Timm and Paul Dini on some animated Marvel or Star Wars shows.
I guarantee the part of the e-mail that El Arbi and Fallah hadn’t divulged is Kevin Feige saying: “Don’t worry, I’ll hire you two to do the movie all over again two years from now, when we will buy Warner with the spare money from ‘Paste-Pot Pete 2′ box office”.
This is completely unrelated to this particular article, but related to this whole situation as a whole:Why the hell would Discovery spend billions of dollars for Warner only to completely gut the properties and streaming service they just bought? Just to get rid of the competition? They weren’t even in the same business! As has been pointed out, Discovery seems to be all about cheaper unscripted entertainment, so why go out of your way to buy a business that makes almost exclusively scripted entertainment and then not produce any of the scripted entertainment you just bought? It seems like madness to me. “We just plopped down $40.4B, so let’s just throw another $90M down the drain!”MADNESS.