The new DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran has weighed in on Batgirl’s cancelation, saying scraping the nearly completed $90 million film was the right decision.
“Batgirl’s a character that inevitably we will include in our story,” Safran said. “On the Batgirl front, it’s not about late in the process of the film getting canceled. I saw the movie, and there are a lot of incredibly talented people in front of and behind the camera on that film. But that film was not releasable, and it happens sometimes.”
He commends the “bold and courageous decision made by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav and the team “to cancel it because it would have hurt DC. It would have hurt those people involved.”
“It would not have been able to compete in the theatrical marketplace; it was built for the small screen,” he continued. “So, again, I think it was not an easy decision, but they made the right decision by shelving it.”
The decision to scrap the film, which was set to be released in both theaters and on HBO Max, caught the industry off guard over the summer. However, WBD executives have continued to defend the decision.
Zaslav explained at the company’s second-quarter earnings call in early August that Warner Bros. Discovery wouldn’t release a movie just to have it out in the world.
WBD CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels also weighed in, saying the media blew the film’s cancellation out of proportion.