‘Batgirl’ “Was Not Releasable” Says DC Co-Chief Peter Safran, But Studio Would Like To Be Back In Business With Pic’s Directors

deadline.com:

DC Co-Chairmen and CEOs Peter Safran and James Gunn were asked to post-mortem the Batgirl axing situation yesterday at their slate unveiling for the comic book studio. “I saw the movie,” said Safran, “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.” “I think (Warner Discovery CEO David) Zaslav and the team made a bold and courageous decision to cancel it, because it would have hurt DC and those people involved,” added Safran. “I spoke to (Batgirl directors) Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah last week — we’d love to be in business with all of them,” added Safran. “Christina Hodson wrote it, and we’re already back in business with her,” said the DC producer referring to the scribe who’s part of Gunn’s writers room for DC Universe Chapter One “Gods and Monsters”.

The Leslie Grace-Michael Keaton-Brenden Fraser starring film, originally destined for HBO Max, cost around $70M. After one test screening, which we hear earned the same score as It, the Zaslav-run Warner Discovery pulled the plug on the film to take advantage of a “purchase accounting” maneuver in order to take care of cost-cutting measures.

What was shocking about Warner’s pulling the plug was in regards to how far along production was; it’s not typical to cancel a film during post-production, not to mention all unfinished films are unreleasable.