Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah were tasked with bringing Barbara Gordon to the big screen for the first time in the superhero movie Batgirl, but with the project almost complete, Warner Bros pulled the plug. The directors have now opened up on the experience.
The DC movie universe has been a rough ride for a while now, with various films being panned by critics, actors leaving their roles, and projects getting cancelled. For Batgirl, which already had wrapped production and was moving through the post-production stages, it was a particularly bitter blow. Not least of all due to the fact the action movie reportedly got the can for tax purposes, rather than its quality.
Speaking to Deadline, the directorial duo have revealed just how the experience felt when they learned of the project being pulled from DC’s slate.
“It was a traumatic experience,” Bilall said, before adding that he and his collaborator went through “all the emotions,” upon hearing the bad news. Even worse, they received the news just two days after El Arbi’s wedding.
“At that time, it was pretty unprecedented, so it was like movie history, but in a crazy way,” El Arbi explained. “There was still a lot of work to be done but they just said it was financial decisions and so that’s that and the movie can never be released,” he added.
It’s such a shame we will never see this movie. With a cast led by Leslie Grace, Brendan Fraser, and JK Simmons, plus a cameo from Batman actor Michael Keaton, it’s a bitter pill to swallow for fans of the Dark Knight and his allies.
For more DC projects that are definitely still happening (we think), check out our guides to The Batman 2 release date and the Aquaman 2 release date.