Warner Bros. Pictures
- Michael Keaton said he didn't care that the "Batgirl" film was canceled and never released.
- "Big, fun, nice check," the Batman actor told GQ in a new interview.
- The film, starring Leslie Grace as Batgirl, was scrapped for cost-cutting and strategic reasons.
Batman actor Michael Keaton isn't bothered at all that Warner Bros. killed the stand-alone "Batgirl" movie as a cost-cutting effort.
"No, I didn't care one way or another. Big, fun, nice check," Keaton said in a new interview with GQ published on Monday.
The actor said that even though the "Batgirl" movie was scrapped, he's a fan of the movie's directing duo, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah.
"I pull for them. I want them to succeed, and I think they felt very badly, and that made me feel bad," Keaton said. "Me? I'm good."
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and DC Comics
Keaton first portrayed Batman/Bruce Wayne in Tim Burton's 1989 "Batman" film and most recently reprised the role in the 2023 movie "The Flash."
The movie was to be a star-making vehicle for Leslie Grace, who portrayed Barbara Gordon/Batgirl.
Grace, perhaps best known for starring as Nina Rosario in Jon M. Chu's 2021 film adaptation of "In the Heights," was cast as the DC Comics character in July 2021 after beating out "The White Lotus" star Haley Lu Richardson.
The cast also included J.K. Simmons, reprising his role as Jim Gordon, Barbara's father and the Gotham City police commissioner, and Brendan Fraser as the villain Firefly.
"Batgirl" was originally intended for release on the streaming service Max. During preproduction, the film was hyped up at DC Comics' online convention DC FanDome in fall 2021.
The following year, the DC Comics Extended Universe (DCEU) underwent a massive overhaul after filmmaker James Gunn and producer Peter Safran were named as the new co-CEOs of DC Studios.
Also in 2022, Discovery and WarnerMedia merged, resulting in the combined company Warner Bros. Discovery.
In interviews, Grace expressed enthusiasm about being a Latina Batgirl and said that working with Keaton was "insane, surreal, incredible." She was even hopeful for a sequel.
Warner Bros.
The New York Post reported in August 2022 that, in a surprising move, "Batgirl" was canceled despite completing principal photography and being in the post-production stage. According to the publication, the budget swelled to more than $100 million and the movie wasn't received well in test screenings.
According to Variety, the "Batgirl" budget ended up being $90 million, and the film being scrapped had nothing to do with its quality. Instead, it was axed because Warner Bros. Discovery shifted its focus to "blockbuster scale" films. Variety later reported that "Batgirl" was canceled so Warner Bros. Discovery could receive a tax write-off.
In January 2023, Safran told Deadline that "Batgirl" was "not releasable" and "it would have hurt DC and those people involved" if it came out.
"I saw the movie," Safran said. "There are a lot of incredibly talented people in front of and behind the camera in that film, but that was not releasable. It happens sometimes."
Grace saw things differently, telling Variety that the film, like any, had obstacles, but that she was proud of what was created. The actor said she got to see an incomplete version of the film and the scenes were "incredible."
"There was definitely potential for a good film, in my opinion," she said. "Maybe we'll get to see clips of it later on."