Warner Bros. Discovery's decision to cut the Batgirl movie looks far worse for the DC Universe in the wake of the box office failure of The Flash movie. The cinematic story centered upon the Fastest Man Alive was only swift in shattering box office records for how quickly a blockbuster could lose money. Indeed, The Flash would have been the biggest bomb of the 2023 Summer were it not for the similarly lackluster reception for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. As it stands, The Flash is still the biggest disaster in the history of the DCEU and Warner Bros. Discovery.
There are many cancel a Batgirl movie that featured Michael Keaton's Batman in a more prominent role.
The Flash's Financial Failure Makes The Batgirl Cuts Financially Pointless
The Batgirl movie starring Leslie Grace as Barbara Gordon was canceled while in post-production in August 2022 as a cost-saving measure. The $90 million dollar movie was planned to be released directly to HBO Max in late 2022 and was to be the first of several low-budget DC Comics movies based around more obscure characters. However, the new management at Warner Bros. Discovery felt the DCEU was better served by big-budget blockbusters than smaller films made for their streaming service. They believed they could make more money on the $15-20 million tax write-off for not releasing the Batgirl movie than they could off of s and disc sales.
This decision has proved a costly one for Warner Bros. Discovery. The Flash is only the latest in a long line of underperforming DCEU blockbusters, with Black Adam and Shazam: Fury of The Gods also losing money after multi-million dollar marketing campaigns that failed to find an audience. The Flash alone is currently estimated to have cost Warner Bros. DIscovery over $200 million, which is is over ten times sum saved by shelving the Batgirl movie.
Why The Flash's Box Office Failure Makes DCEU's Batgirl Cut Way Worse
The sad truth is that the Batgirl movie would likely have made more money than The Flash movie, and could've bolstered the franchise's reputation. Beyond the lower threshold for profitability, Batgirl also had a notable cast of award-winning actors with huge fan followings. In addition to Michael Keaton's return as Batman, the movie would have seen the return of J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon and Brendan Fraser as the villain Firefly. Given Fraser's recent career resurgence following an Oscar win and the fact that The Flash movie leaned so heavily on Keaton's Batman, the decision to cut Batgirl looks like one of the biggest mistakes in DC Universe history following the total failure of The Flash.
