Leslie Grace addresses the sudden cancellation of her Batgirl movie
" I am proud of the love, hard work and intention all of our incredible cast and tireless crew put into this film," Grace wrote on social media
Aux News Batgirl
Among the hundreds of people affected by Warner Bros. Discovery’s shocking decision to cancel HBO Max’s Batgirl movie yesterday (even as it was reportedly 90 percent of the way to completion), few are as central, obviously, as star Leslie Grace. Singer-songwriter Grace—who had her breakout acting role in 2021 as one of the leads in Warner’s In The Heights—has, after all, spent quite a few months of her life at this point getting fake-beat-up in spandex in Scotland for the film, which was scheduled to come out on HBO Max after wrapping its initial filming back in March 2022. Observers have, thus, been pretty curious about what she had to say about the parent company’s move to shelve the movie indefinitely
Grace took the high road tonight, though, posting a message to Instagram this evening that was focused entirely on the people she made Batgirl with, rather than the not-especially appreciative overlords they technically made the movie for:
Querida familia! On the heels of the recent news about our movie “Batgirl,” I am proud of the love, hard work and intention all of our incredible cast and tireless crew put into this film over 7 months in Scotland. I feel blessed to have worked among absolute greats and forged relationships for a lifetime in the process! To every Batgirl fan – THANK YOU for the love and belief, allowing me to take on the cape and become, as Babs said best, “my own damn hero!”
Grace accompanied her post with a number of photos and videos from the film’s Scotland production, including videos of her serenading the camera while getting into costume, working with the film’s camera crew, and singing with her castmates. It’s all very positive, and very light on the “fuck you, Warner Bros. Discovery president David Zaslav.” Grace’s post comes not long after the film’s directors, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Falla, made their own social media statements about the cancellation, describing themselves as “saddened and shocked by the news.”
77 Comments
Just to clear things up from speculation, this had nothing to do with the actress’ race. There’s a tax loophole that allows WBD to recoup pretty much all of their money by writing it off. Same reason why the Scoob sequel was canned. Even if Batgirl was starring a white girl, it would have been canned.Also, Zaslav has canned almost every scripted show CW, TBS, TNT, and Adult Swim were making, as well as laying off 1,000 workers and prepared to lay off thousands more by the end of November, and many, many of those people now without jobs are, in fact, white men. People claiming this is the same thing as Ray Fisher have not been paying attention.
I’ve read that the cancellation was some combination of the movie being bad and a tax write0off, but I haven’t seen anywhere that they’ll recoup all their money (~90 million). Did you read that somewhere?
I think the way it works for rich people and corporations is if you tell the government that you lost 90 million dollars, they just give it back to you.
I’m not sure of the specifics but they’ll basically write it off as a loss. The issue there for fans is after writing it off it can never be monetized, so can never be released in a way WB could profit from.
You are right. They don’t recoup it like as in getting 90 million or whatever back as a check for 90 million. It’s registered as a loss, which means whatever they ‘lose’ offsets some of the taxes on the stuff they didn’t. Broadly speaking they get to write off the loss as a deduction to offset gains on a more successful production.Essentially, they decided whatever money the movie made would not be worth more than having a 90 million tax write off.
You’re absolutely right, but at the end of the day WB had an almost finished superhero film starring a woman of color and they canceled it. There is no context where that changes.
No one owes you anything
Yes, but change ‘woman of color’ for ‘animated talking dog’ and that statement is still true. One is embedded with a narivate and the other isn’t.
So even if the movie’s cancellation had nothing to do with the lead’s race, the cancellation of the movie still has to be viewed through the lens of race?
There’s also no context where that is relevant
So WB is obligated to release it just because it stars a woman of colour? No, they’re not. And the people who made the movie still got paid for their work.
And the fact that because of the merger all the non white and female executives were pushed out and replaced with white males is a factor here, even if consciously they will all clutch their pearls and say no it was financial. There was clearly no one with any sort of emotional connection to the idea of Batgirl to speak up. But they did let us all know there will be another Joker film, so angry, socially awkward white males with a victim complex will have their hero! I’m pretty much going to cancel my HBO Max once I finish Harley Quinn.
Right, they must care more about the color of an actor’s skin rather than boatloads of money. You’ve really cracked the case here.
No one cares
Yeah! Zaslav is a regular capitalist pile of human garbage who should be fired out of a cannon into the Sun as a way to improve the future of the human race. Not a racist one.
Hey hey hey! Save some room in that cannon for fellow vulture capitalist Jim Spanfeller! Not a lot of room, necessarily; we can smoosh him in with a plunger if need be.
I’ll gladly take a plunger to both guys.
Just saying, hate him for the right reasons.
The italics imply that “regular” and “racist” are separate characteristics, which is throwing me.
Huh???
yeah but the thing is if it was about the actress’ race they wouldn’t announce that as the reason.
988
That still leaves Zaslav as evil, and deserving of the worst, most wasting type of cancer you might name.
Network executives are much lower on the evil list than billionaires, politicians, judges, fossil fuel executives, banking executives, etc.
He deserves a horrible death because he didn’t release a Batgirl film that you really wanted to see? Get a grip.
Dismissed garbage person: no, he’s evil because of everything else listed over the past several days, and his effect on a whole swath of shows properties and people’s careers (literally thousands of layoffs, and not all some notion you might have about spoiled stars), not one isolated film, about which it is his methods and stated operating philosophy that are evil. Moron.
it’s still terrible optics though.
Zaslav has canned almost every scripted show CW, TBS, TNT, and Adult Swim were making, as well as laying off 1,000 workers and prepared to lay off thousands more by the end of November It seems the Discovery half is winning out over the Warner half. And that sucks for those of us who don’t like reality tv.
Only the dumbest and tweetiest amongst us need this “cleared up”.
You can’t recoup ALL the money and the movie rated very badly among test audiences.
Last i checked her race was human, so i dont know why that would be an issue. But yeah, her historic ethnic and melatonin background are not the reason this was shut down.
Don’t be a smartass
Don’t be a smartass
Is it me or does the name Zaslav sound like a supervillain name?
“Even if Batgirl was starring a white girl, it would have been canned.”
There is really no way to prove this.
“I starred in a movie you’ll never get to see” sounds like one hell of a story to tell at parties. So uh… at least there’s that.
I wouldn’t say never, i’m sure it will come out at some point as I imagine WB is going to get sued over this.
that’s all of hollywood and a chunk of new york, basically
The movie was shot in Canada. You don’t know her.
On location having the time of my life shooting a DCEU movie with my friends. They’re all just out of frame, acting too.
I’d watch a musical about a young woman cast as Batgirl, her relationships with the crew and costume people, and the behind-the-scenes shenanigans of making a bad movie. Especially if Michael Keaton gets a solo wearing dark eye-makeup.
Too bad you don’t know what the film would have been, Chadster.
I read this reply in Michael Keaton’s voice, and if it’s you dude, I apologize. I wont know what this movie will be or would have been. I do still love you as Batman and hope you get more work under the cowl. Batman Beyond maybe? WB seems like a couple tires blew off the bus. Hang in there.Spotlight rules btw.
You know what would be equally hilarious and awesome? Kevin Feige giving Ms. Grace a role in the MCU. Either in a movie or a D+ show, as long as it’s a substantial role, it would be an amazing “In your face!” from Disney to the clusterfuck formerly know as Warner…
I think it’d be funnier to just cast her as Batgirl in the next season of Peacemaker. They basically let James Gunn do whatever he wants at this point.
Does the MCU have a Nighthawk yet? Come to think of it, Marvel doing a whole Squadron Supreme movie would be really funny.
#ReleaseTheOnlyExistingCut
I’d just like to know:Is the movie Electra-bad, Catwoman-bad or is it even Supergirl-bad?
…no-no-no-no-no-no, no-no-no-no-no-no-BATGIRL! BATGIRL!
this is such a shame. i really loved the batgirl character in the 1966 batman tv series, so was really excited to see this. i don’t care about quality, i love the Tim Story Fantastic 4 films.
Have we considered the real possibility that this movie is just really really incredibly bad?
Even if that was the case, it was going straight to streaming anyway. When you add in that a Scooby Doo movie that was near completion also got canceled, several other movies were dropped in various stages of production, all the canceled TV shows including some that had completed filming and were set to air, and stuff being taken off of HBO Max that was exclusive to it, it’s pretty clear that the quality of the movie was never the issue.
But maybe, and I know this goes against the idea of all the bullshit that gets released, it was so bad it’d hurt the reputation of anyone who streamed it.
You speak of impossibilities.
It’d have to be worse than movies like Steel, the ‘unreleased’ Fantastic Four film that was only made to hold onto movie rights, the most recent Fantastic Four film, and the first Suicide Squad movie.
Wanting things to be true doesn’t make them true.
I think the real story here is that it has never made sense to film big-budget movies for the direct-to-streaming market. Big budget *series* keep audiences hooked and renewing their subscriptions for years. Dumping a $100 million movie on streaming does nothing to attract or retain new subscribers, because it’s only two hours of content watched in a single sitting. It never made sense for Warner Bros. to dump their entire 2021 slate on HBO Max, and it didn’t make sense to produce an expensive Batgirl movie that’s not quite on par with recent Batman films, but also can’t justify its expense.The HBO Max strategy failed, just like Netflix is failing. The pandemic era was short-lived, the theatrical market has bounced back, and expensive movies need to premiere in theaters to justify their budget.
To be fair, the HBO Max ‘strategy’ seemed to be ‘uhh… lets just do stuff and offer it on streaming and theaters. Which probably would’ve worked if Disney+ and other streaming services stuck with that too instead of backpedaling to theatrical-only. I mean they backpedaled so hard that they made ‘only in theaters’ a selling point for film releases now.
Meanwhile Hulu and Netflix can keep pushing out medium~high budget films worldwide, streaming only.
Honestly, that Scooby Doo cancellation is even more confusing. it’s an animated movie going to streaming. Just release it, kids will watch it, no matter how bad it is. That’s kind of what has me thinking that it was a good chance that the tax writeoff played a major part in it, if not most of the reason for the decision.Now, if Batgirl had been a stupendously awesome film, I’m sure they wouldn’t have just axed it, but then they probably would’ve put it in theaters.
You’re talking about the CEO that greenlit the trashiest reality shows on the planet. There’s no way Batgirl is worse than Toddlers and Tiaras, Honey Boo Boo, or My 600 Pound Life.This guy loathes quality.
The Discovery tail wagging the HBO dog.
I mean, they did build a $100 million movie around a singer with exactly one other acting credit. Probably not the whole issue, but likely didn’t help.
No, because if it were “just bad”, they’d be desperate to release it to make some of their money back.
That just doesn’t have a lot of weight when you look at how bad Suicide Squad, WW84, and BvS are tho. It just doesn’t make sense.
It might not be amazing but “the film got canned cuz it’s irredeemable” is bullshit.
Have you …seen the other DC movies that they’ve released?
That seems to be the most logical conclusion. I don’t think they’d cancel something that looked great. Moreover, by all accounts, it had strong ties to some of the Batman properties that the new bosses seem like they want to move away from. The fact that it was bad and exists in a “universe” you are trying to move away from makes it both bad AND confusing, muddying the waters for future projects.
I don’t know what David Zaslav looks like, but I picture something along the lines of Ted Knight in Caddyshack or Kevin McCarthy in UHF.
Sure you don’t. lol
He has such a beautiful, sincere smile
If he calls me a festering bowl of dog snot, I might be mildly entertained? But Kevin McCarthy will always give the better read, I think.
I demand to see how bad this movie is! Lets start a petition!!!!
Yeah, I would probably have never watched this movie if it had been given a normal release, but this situation makes me want to see it way more.
Maybe she’s relieved because it actually is trash?
What else is she going to say?
The whispers said this movie was bad, there is no audience for “Batgirl” and the WB does not want to use HBOMAX to run movies that should be in theaters. They also are over 45 billion in debt and are slashing everywhere. The best case for this movie was it would break even and that is not enough. The market has spoken and they just do not care if a movie has a POC woman in it. No one buys a ticket because of that, especially superhero movies where the target audience really, really does not care about that. The days of making movies that no one wants to see for some social credits are over. They need to make money.
“Zaslav” definitely sound like the name of a Batman villain. So that tracks.