Kevin Smith spoke out against Warner Bros.’ axing of “Batgirl” during the latest episode of his “Hollywood Babble-On” YouTube show. The filmmaker called it “an incredible bad look” for the studio to drop the rare comic book tentpole to be headlined by a Latina actor, especially when Warner Bros. is still moving forward on the release of its Ezra Miller-led tentpole “The Flash.”
“It’s an incredibly bad look to cancel the Latina ‘Batgirl’ movie,” Smith said. “I don’t give a shit if the movie was absolute fucking dog shit – I guarantee you that it wasn’t. The two directors [Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi] who directed that movie did a couple of episodes of ‘Ms. Marvel,’ and it was a wonderful fucking show and they had more money to do ‘Batgirl’ than they had to do an episode of ‘Ms. Marvel’ and stuff.”
Warner Bros. announced Aug. 2 that it would not be releasing the $90 million “Batgirl” in theaters or on its HBO Max streamer, despite the movie being fully shot and in post-production. Studio executives said the reason for shelving “Batgirl” was because it did not have a blockbuster scale for theaters (the film was originally conceived for HBO Max), but Variety reported that a tax write off was also one of the driving forces behind the decision. The only way Warner Bros. can write the film off is if it does not get a release in any capacity.
Early reports claimed that “Batgirl” test screenings were a disaster and that the film was “irredeemable,” but Smith has a hard time buying into those rumors. He said he doubts the film is “absolute fucking dog shit,” and he noted that even if the movie did not look the greatest, well neither does the handful of DC series that air on The CW.
“I love all the CW shows, but the CW shows show their budgetary constraints,” Smith said. “They said ‘Batgirl’ looked too cheap because it was a $90 million movie. How do you make a cheap-looking $90 million movie? If it looked slightly better than an episode of ‘Arrow’ then why couldn’t we see that?”
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said last week during the company’s Q2 earnings call that “The Flash” is still hearing for a theatrical release. The film’s star, Ezra Miller, has been at the center of numerous controversies in recent months regarding alleged abusive behavior. These allegations include choking an Icelandic woman in a bar and harassing another woman in her home in Berlin. In addition, the actor has been arrested twice in Hawaii this year, once for disorderly conduct and harassment and another time for second-degree assault.
“That is the baffling thing,” Smith said. “I don’t give a shit how bad the ‘Batgirl’ movie is, nobody in that movie is complicated or has anything in their real life you have to market around. In ‘The Flash’ movie, we all know there’s a big problem! Flash is the Reverse-Flash in real life.”
Watch the full episode of Smith’s YouTube show below.
