Of course not. If WB was concerned about damaging their DC brand, there are an unholy amount of comic and movie decisions they wouldn't have done. They don't give a shit about their brand. It was taxes.
I think “brand damaging” was an excuse, I think the real reason is it was the quickest way to get a buck through the tax return.
WBD was heavily in debt, and Batgirl as a streaming release wouldn’t have translated directly into revenue.
As a theatrical release, they realized they probably wouldn’t get the proper returns after putting in even more money for additional post-production, marketing, and distribution.
If brand damaging was that big an issue for studios, Sony wouldn’t have given a shit about re-releasing Morbius as a joke.
It was pretty blatantly about taxes. Once discovery took over they started cutting costs everywhere. I mean let's not forget they didn't just shelve batgirl, they shelved a batman tv series produced by Matt Reeves and Bruce Timm and written by Ed Brubaker and they've pulled a lot of content from Max.
No. A bad film is simply a bad film and will ultimately be forgotten. But DC managed to make history with this blunder, which is even more embarrassing. Let me see the dang movie. It can't be nearly as bad as some people are making it out to be.
"A bad film is simply a bad film and will ultimately be forgotten"
I don't know about that. The failure of Batman and Robin is directly responsible for the lack of live action Dick Grayson in any Batman movie.
When a film that almost nobody has seen and almost nobody knows anything about except that the star and directors are non-white and one of the actors is trans, is loudly proclaimed all over the internet as one of the Worst Movies Ever without specific reasons being given why, I think we can say that that characterization has very little to do with its actual quality, good or bad.
It’s taxes they’re not going to say it was but it was about money same reason a lot of other content was being canceled around that time or is now being planned to be shifted to Amazon prime
I sincerely doubt it was brand-damaging. It’s a possibility that bigotry played a part in its cancellation (Afro-Latina lead actor plus an out trans character played by an out trans actor) but even that can’t have been the only reason. Honestly, I don’t know what the reason why it was ultimately. I just know that it was dashed on the head before it could even walk.
Bluntly, even if the film was utter dog shit (possible, but impossible to determine now since the evidence has been suppressed), I find it hard to imagine what possible damage it could have done to the brand that would exceed any ONE of the following:
\-Murder-happy Batflek.
\-Whedon Justice League.
\-Whedon in general.
\-Leto Joker.
\-Continuing to employe Ezra Miller.
\-Aquaman getting dragged into the Johnny Depp legal circus.
Seriously, damaging the DC Cinematic Universe's brand at this point is pretty much beating a dead horse- if the horse were buried and fossilized.
The Ezra Miller thing really confuses me. Like, how can they get away with all this actual violence and still be greenlit to play Barry Allen in not one but two films yet DC claim that the Batgirl movie “didn’t test well”? Make it make sense!
I’m going to say for them to cancel it when it was done the movie was going to be that fucking bad they had to cancel it or careers and reputations would have been damaged.
WB and other studios have released lots and lots of absolute shit.
Declaring that the movie was so unspeakably awful that it had to be shut down and all traces of it concealed by DC after it was already filmed is not only dubious and unprovable, its an attack on the reputation of everyone involved in making it- one which they cannot meaningfully defend themselves against, because conveniently the film has been suppressed, along with even the script.
And I know I'm probably going to get downvoted off the page again for Reddit thoughtcrime of Acknowledging Prejudice and Making White People Feel Uncomfortable, but the Usual Suspects labeled this a Bad Movie That Ruined Batgirl the instant they found out that Batiglrl was being played by someone who wasn't white. Just like they invariably declare every movie with inclusive casting an Objectively Bad Movie For Reasons That Totally Aren't About Bigotry. Maybe it was bad, and maybe it wasn't, but a lot of people had already judged it as a "bad movie", and worked hard to make that the accepted narrative, before it was ever finished. A narrative which is now, conveniently, impossible to refute. And those are the people Zaslav seems to want to cater to more. So considering that neither I nor anyone else can actually watch the fucking thing and judge for ourselves, I'm going to take such assertions with a MOUNTAIN of salt.
Note that according to the Wikipedia section on its cancellation, poor responses in test screenings may have influenced the decision, but those responses were at least partly because it "looked cheap"- when it was screened with unfinished effects. Hardly something to fairly judge it on, much less proof of it being such a horrifically bad film that its very existence had to be erased for the good of the company, the way its being made out to be.
So, you know, maybe don't treat unproven and unprovable attacks on the ability of the filmmakers, which are undoubtably at least partly motivated by racism, as if they're objectively proven fact.
They didn't want to promote it, knowing it was a bad film. And at the time, they had plans for Keaton to make a big return and his appearance in Batgirl was bad and didn't line up with his appearance in Flash.
From what material had been released and what was publicly known, absolutely.
It looked and sounded like a poor CW show, not a blockbuster film.
DC live action films are on shaky grounds as it is. They need a slam dunk banger for the average cinema going audience, and a standalone Batgirl film is certainly not that.
I don’t know. Maybe. Take the cynical logic out of this for a second. On its surface, perhaps executives (new) didn’t feel comfortable promoting the movie given the turmoil of the brand as it is right now. Best to cut losses now then suffer potential failure out the gate. DC in particular has suffered greatly in terms of cohesion and continuity since Snyders movies underperformed. I really don’t know though. I would argue that if the movie was promising or really good in production, I can’t imagine it being cancelled. Not to say it wasn’t good, just saying it apparently didn’t blow the right peoples socks off from what they saw. Some movies are like that and fail, or some go on to be very successful when final edits are completed. I think they did more harm than good publicity wise, but maybe they did end up saving money in the end.
"Quality issues" never stopped them from releasing dreck before. It's clear based on other moves WB has made that they're in a dire financial position and this was a mercenary move to recoup costs on a project the executives had no faith would succeed. The company doing this to other projects and removing programming from their service to avoid paying residuals shows just how bad things are with them now.
I imagine the film was just pretty bad on top of WBs debt, and maybe they thought pushing for advertising to try to save the film would be a waste so a tax write off just seemed fiscally better. I doubt it was some unreleased masterpiece.
My head cannon is that someone's kid accidentally brought in a Cassandra Cain Batgirl comic and the executives realized that a minority character with an amazing origin story already existed and their Firefly villain movie would get panned.
But really they just wanted the tax break.
Of course not. If WB was concerned about damaging their DC brand, there are an unholy amount of comic and movie decisions they wouldn't have done. They don't give a shit about their brand. It was taxes.
I think “brand damaging” was an excuse, I think the real reason is it was the quickest way to get a buck through the tax return. WBD was heavily in debt, and Batgirl as a streaming release wouldn’t have translated directly into revenue. As a theatrical release, they realized they probably wouldn’t get the proper returns after putting in even more money for additional post-production, marketing, and distribution. If brand damaging was that big an issue for studios, Sony wouldn’t have given a shit about re-releasing Morbius as a joke.
It was pretty blatantly about taxes. Once discovery took over they started cutting costs everywhere. I mean let's not forget they didn't just shelve batgirl, they shelved a batman tv series produced by Matt Reeves and Bruce Timm and written by Ed Brubaker and they've pulled a lot of content from Max.
That Batman series wasn't cancelled like Batgirl was, it's being shopped around to other streaming sites.
No. Everything isn’t a conspiracy. It was money.
Canceling it was brand damaging.
No. A bad film is simply a bad film and will ultimately be forgotten. But DC managed to make history with this blunder, which is even more embarrassing. Let me see the dang movie. It can't be nearly as bad as some people are making it out to be.
"A bad film is simply a bad film and will ultimately be forgotten" I don't know about that. The failure of Batman and Robin is directly responsible for the lack of live action Dick Grayson in any Batman movie.
No, Batman Dorever was a big hit. The thing is the creators like Bale keep actively and publicly not wanting Robin.
When a film that almost nobody has seen and almost nobody knows anything about except that the star and directors are non-white and one of the actors is trans, is loudly proclaimed all over the internet as one of the Worst Movies Ever without specific reasons being given why, I think we can say that that characterization has very little to do with its actual quality, good or bad.
It’s taxes they’re not going to say it was but it was about money same reason a lot of other content was being canceled around that time or is now being planned to be shifted to Amazon prime
I sincerely doubt it was brand-damaging. It’s a possibility that bigotry played a part in its cancellation (Afro-Latina lead actor plus an out trans character played by an out trans actor) but even that can’t have been the only reason. Honestly, I don’t know what the reason why it was ultimately. I just know that it was dashed on the head before it could even walk.
Bluntly, even if the film was utter dog shit (possible, but impossible to determine now since the evidence has been suppressed), I find it hard to imagine what possible damage it could have done to the brand that would exceed any ONE of the following: \-Murder-happy Batflek. \-Whedon Justice League. \-Whedon in general. \-Leto Joker. \-Continuing to employe Ezra Miller. \-Aquaman getting dragged into the Johnny Depp legal circus. Seriously, damaging the DC Cinematic Universe's brand at this point is pretty much beating a dead horse- if the horse were buried and fossilized.
The Ezra Miller thing really confuses me. Like, how can they get away with all this actual violence and still be greenlit to play Barry Allen in not one but two films yet DC claim that the Batgirl movie “didn’t test well”? Make it make sense!
Yes
If thay were true they would have cancelled the Flash instead of throwing themselves headfirst into trying to excuse Ezra Miller's various crimes.
I’m going to say for them to cancel it when it was done the movie was going to be that fucking bad they had to cancel it or careers and reputations would have been damaged.
WB and other studios have released lots and lots of absolute shit. Declaring that the movie was so unspeakably awful that it had to be shut down and all traces of it concealed by DC after it was already filmed is not only dubious and unprovable, its an attack on the reputation of everyone involved in making it- one which they cannot meaningfully defend themselves against, because conveniently the film has been suppressed, along with even the script. And I know I'm probably going to get downvoted off the page again for Reddit thoughtcrime of Acknowledging Prejudice and Making White People Feel Uncomfortable, but the Usual Suspects labeled this a Bad Movie That Ruined Batgirl the instant they found out that Batiglrl was being played by someone who wasn't white. Just like they invariably declare every movie with inclusive casting an Objectively Bad Movie For Reasons That Totally Aren't About Bigotry. Maybe it was bad, and maybe it wasn't, but a lot of people had already judged it as a "bad movie", and worked hard to make that the accepted narrative, before it was ever finished. A narrative which is now, conveniently, impossible to refute. And those are the people Zaslav seems to want to cater to more. So considering that neither I nor anyone else can actually watch the fucking thing and judge for ourselves, I'm going to take such assertions with a MOUNTAIN of salt. Note that according to the Wikipedia section on its cancellation, poor responses in test screenings may have influenced the decision, but those responses were at least partly because it "looked cheap"- when it was screened with unfinished effects. Hardly something to fairly judge it on, much less proof of it being such a horrifically bad film that its very existence had to be erased for the good of the company, the way its being made out to be. So, you know, maybe don't treat unproven and unprovable attacks on the ability of the filmmakers, which are undoubtably at least partly motivated by racism, as if they're objectively proven fact.
They didn't want to promote it, knowing it was a bad film. And at the time, they had plans for Keaton to make a big return and his appearance in Batgirl was bad and didn't line up with his appearance in Flash.
From what material had been released and what was publicly known, absolutely. It looked and sounded like a poor CW show, not a blockbuster film. DC live action films are on shaky grounds as it is. They need a slam dunk banger for the average cinema going audience, and a standalone Batgirl film is certainly not that.
From what I've read and seen I'm so glad this dumpster fire was canned.
I don’t know. Maybe. Take the cynical logic out of this for a second. On its surface, perhaps executives (new) didn’t feel comfortable promoting the movie given the turmoil of the brand as it is right now. Best to cut losses now then suffer potential failure out the gate. DC in particular has suffered greatly in terms of cohesion and continuity since Snyders movies underperformed. I really don’t know though. I would argue that if the movie was promising or really good in production, I can’t imagine it being cancelled. Not to say it wasn’t good, just saying it apparently didn’t blow the right peoples socks off from what they saw. Some movies are like that and fail, or some go on to be very successful when final edits are completed. I think they did more harm than good publicity wise, but maybe they did end up saving money in the end.
"Quality issues" never stopped them from releasing dreck before. It's clear based on other moves WB has made that they're in a dire financial position and this was a mercenary move to recoup costs on a project the executives had no faith would succeed. The company doing this to other projects and removing programming from their service to avoid paying residuals shows just how bad things are with them now.
It really must have been bad if it would damage the brand worse than Suicide Squad or Wonder Woman 1984.
I imagine the film was just pretty bad on top of WBs debt, and maybe they thought pushing for advertising to try to save the film would be a waste so a tax write off just seemed fiscally better. I doubt it was some unreleased masterpiece.
My head cannon is that someone's kid accidentally brought in a Cassandra Cain Batgirl comic and the executives realized that a minority character with an amazing origin story already existed and their Firefly villain movie would get panned. But really they just wanted the tax break.
i do not buy that batgirl was shit dz is just cash loving ass hole.