The whole thing only got weirder after the cancellation. Directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah said they tried to access footage from the movie afterward and couldn’t. According to them, Warner Bros. had blocked them from the servers.
The cast, understandably, was not thrilled. Brendan Fraser later called the cancellation tragic, especially because of what Leslie Grace’s Batgirl could have meant to young girls. Michael Keaton had a more darkly funny reaction, essentially saying he didn’t lose sleep over it because he got paid, though he felt bad for the directors.
And mere months before the shocking news, Grace (Batgirl herself) was talking up the movie and revealed she and the directors were even discussing sequel ideas. “There’s crazy stunts, crazy drops. She’s a biker chick, so you’re going to see her do a bunch of badassery.” She added, “There were a lot of night shoots. There were a lot of long days, but it was so worth it.” Uh…
Warner Bros. later insisted the cancellation had nothing to do with Grace’s performance, and DC Studios co-head Peter Safran eventually said the film was “not releasable” and “built for the small screen.” Maybe that’s true. Maybe it wasn’t good. But plenty of bad superhero movies have been released.
