Batgirl scenes from the movie you’ll NEVER see: Cast and crew are pictured on Glasgow set of ‘irredeemable’ £75m DC flick that’s been canned after producers pushed their ‘woke’ agenda on superhero fans
- Pictured here being filmed in Glasgow, the movie was completely finished having cost estimated $90 million
- Got as far as test screenings and was slated for release in cinemas and on the U.S. streaming service HBO Max
- However, the feedback was so awful that Warner Bros decided against releasing it to protect its reputation
- The appearance, according to critics, is of a film putting its ‘progressive’ values ahead of all other concerns
These are the scenes from the film you’ll never see. Batgirl, a ‘woke’, big-budget film featuring a female version of the Caped Crusader, has been ignominiously scrapped – shocking the film world.
Pictured here being filmed in Glasgow, the movie was completely finished having cost an estimated $90 million (£75 million). But Batgirl will never be released in any format – potentially making it the most expensive film ever made that will never see the light of day.
The film got as far as test screenings and was slated for release in cinemas and on the U.S. streaming service HBO Max by the end of this year.
However, the audience feedback was so awful that – in an almost unprecedented move – Warner Bros has decided the reputational damage of releasing such a dud would be even worse than wasting the tens of millions of dollars it has already spent on it.
‘It just didn’t work,’ said an insider. The decision is also a blow for Glasgow, which had stood in for Gotham City in the movie.
Batgirl’s screenplay was by Christina Hodson, the British writer of ultra-feminist film Birds Of Prey, accused by one critic of ‘hating on men — all men . . . [and] dull to the point of numbing’.
Batgirl also featured a transgender character, Alysia Yeoh, Barbara Gordon’s flatmate, played by the trans actor Ivory Aquino.
The impression, critics say, is of a film putting its ‘progressive’ values ahead of all other concerns.
Batgirl, pictured here being filmed in Glasgow, will never see the light of day in any format. Pictured: A huge explosion filmed at the old Glasgow District Court on Turnbull Street
Leslie Grace, who played Batgirl, said she was ‘proud of the love, hard work and intention all of our incredible cast and tireless crew put into this film over seven months in Scotland’
Lead actor Leslie Grace’s stunt women in Batgirl costume filming action scenes (left) and Brendan Fraser’s stunt men who was rumoured to be playing villain Firefly
A stuntman wearing a prosthetic mask on the batman set (left) and Fraser’s stuntman after filming of a Batgirl scene
The film got as far as test screenings and was slated for release in cinemas and on the U.S. streaming service HBO Max by the end of this year
Leslie Grace being filmed while standing on a platform in Glasgow city centre, which doubled up for Gotham City
Hollywood icon Michael Keaton was reprising his role as Batman, while Commissioner Gordon — Batgirl’s father — was played by the actor J.K. Simmons (pictured), who starred in 2002’s Spider-Man
Batgirl also featured a transgender character, Alysia Yeoh, Barbara Gordon’s flatmate, played by the trans actor Ivory Aquino (left, with Grace). The appearance, critics say, is of a film putting its ‘progressive’ values ahead of all other concerns
But why was it cancelled so late in the day, and after so much time, money and resources had been spent on it?
Some have alleged the film may have been scrapped rather than released for tax reasons; Warner Bros can now claim Batgirl as a tax write-off — helping it recoup some of its costs elsewhere. However, that doesn’t account for why the film was so bad in the first place.
And here there are certainly strong clues to suggest that Batgirl was only the latest in a long and disastrous line of Hollywood films that have prioritised politically correct values over entertainment. As Robin might say, Holy Woke, Batman!
Fans will remember that in the original comics, Batgirl is the night-time alter ego of Barbara Gordon, the daughter of Gotham City’s red-headed police commissioner Jim Gordon.
The star of the film was a little-known Afro-Latina singer-actress named Leslie Grace. This alone was a big risk as 27-year-old Grace’s only previous major acting role was in the box-office flop In The Heights, a ‘musical drama’ made by woke hero Lin-Manuel Miranda, the man behind the musical Hamilton.
Hollywood icon Michael Keaton was reprising his role as Batman, while Commissioner Gordon — Batgirl’s father — was played by the actor J.K. Simmons, who starred in 2002’s Spider-Man.
The film was directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, young Moroccan-Belgians best known for the TV series Ms Marvel, about a Muslim Pakistani-American teenage girl who is bullied at school until she develops superpowers.
When Ms Marvel was released in June, it received a tsunami of abuse from comic book fans complaining about its unbearable wokeness.
(The series is made by Disney, so progressive nowadays that it applies racism warnings to the crows in Dumbo and offers a children’s show — called ‘Baymax!’ — which features a scene in which a robot asks a transgender man what sort of sanitary product he should buy for a 12-year-old girl.)
It’s not for the first time a film has been accused of putting its ‘progressive’ values ahead of all other concerns.. Superhero films — normally somewhere audiences might go to escape our era’s endless culture wars — have increasingly become major repositories of wokery.
In 2021, Marvel’s mega-budget movie Eternals — starring Angelina Jolie, Kit Harington and Richard Madden — was panned by fans and critics alike as dull and preachy. It included Marvel’s first gay superhero and its first deaf one.
Lightyear, a spin-off from Pixar’s celebrated Toy Story film series, was expected to be one of the biggest movies of this summer. Instead, it bombed.
Critics complained that it substituted liberal virtue-signalling — Buzz Lightyear’s commanding officer is a black lesbian and the film features the first same-sex kiss in a Pixar production — for the simple, unpoliticised joys of the original movies.
By contrast, this summer also saw the release of Top Gun: Maverick, a barnstorming reboot of the wildly popular 1986 film Top Gun, an action film about gung-ho American fighter pilots. It has provided a sharp rejoinder to Hollywood bosses who insist their increasingly right-on output is just a reaction to changing audience tastes and social mores.
The decision on the film — which was to be released later this year — came after test screenings were panned by audiences, and studio execs thought it would hurt the future of the brand as they seek to rebrand the DC Extended Universe
The cast, including extras, preparing for an explosion scene outside the Gordon family home, in yet another moment that will never be seen by cinemagoers
The film would have featured J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Jim Gordon (left). Pictured right: One of the film’s action scenes
Fans of Hollywood actor Fraser Brendan are devastated at the news the film has been cancelled
Tom Cruise’s new film proudly re-treads much the same ground as the original Boy’s Own-style adventure, featuring virtually no women, no let-up in the shameless machismo and no scenes in which pilots question their sexuality or their patriotic devotion to U.S. firepower.
In short, it’s almost joyfully off-message with 2020s Hollywood.
Perhaps as a result, it’s been a monster hit with critics and at the box office — so far it’s the highest-grossing film of the year and, remarkably, given his long history of making blockbusters, even of Cruise’s career.
With one recent exception — 2017’s entertaining romp Wonder Woman, starring Gal Gadot — films with female superheroes as the main attraction have generally not been commercial and critical triumphs, whatever their diligent support for girl power. Many have been simply dismal.
The trend began as far back as 1984, with Supergirl, a feminist remake of Superman starring Helen Slater and with supporting actors including Peter O’Toole and Faye Dunaway.
This has notched up an execrable 8 per cent approval rating on the critics’ aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.
Catwoman, which arrived in 2004, scores only 9 per cent and regularly features in critics’ ‘worst movies ever’ lists. The film starred former Bond girl Halle Berry as Batman’s anti- heroine love interest (with superhuman feline abilities and a black leather catsuit).
The following year, Jennifer Garner squeezed into a similarly revealing outfit to star as Elektra, a supernatural assassin who has to protect an innocent man and his daughter. Nice switch of traditional gender roles there — except it, too, was a clunker, earning a dire 11 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Warner Bros decided the reputational damage of releasing such a dud would be even worse than wasting the tens of millions of dollars it has already spent on it
Film crew prepare the set of the new Batgirl movie in Glasgow. The news it has been axed is a blow for the Scottish city
Film crew on the set of Batgirl in the Trongate area of Glasgow on January 19. The news of its cancellation will be a blow to the city
The directors of Batgirl have said they are ‘saddened and shocked’ that Warner Bros has scrapped the film months before it was due to be released
Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah shared a joint statement on Instagram saying they wished fans could have the ‘opportunity to see and embrace the final film themselves’
The directors of Batgirl have said they are ‘saddened and shocked’ that Warner Bros has scrapped the film months before it was due to be released.
Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah shared a joint statement on Instagram saying they wished fans could have the ‘opportunity to see and embrace the final film themselves’.
El Arbi and Fallah said: ‘We are saddened and shocked by the news. We still can’t believe it.
‘As directors, it is critical that our work be shown to audiences, and while the film was far from finished, we wish that fans all over the world would have had the opportunity to see and embrace the final film themselves. Maybe one day they will insha’Allah (if God wills).
‘Our amazing cast and crew did a tremendous job and worked so hard to bring Batgirl to life.
‘We are forever grateful to have been part of that team. It was a dream to work with such fantastic actors like Michael Keaton, J.K. Simmons, Brendan Fraser, Jacob Scipio, Corey Johnson, Rebecca Front and especially the great Leslie Grace, who portrayed Batgirl with so much passion, dedication and humanity.’
They added: ‘In any case, as huge fans of Batman since we were little kids, it was a privilege and an honor to have been a part of the DCEU, even if it was for a brief moment,’ and signed off their statement ‘Batgirl For Life’.
Batgirl actress Leslie Grace says she’s PROUD of hard work put into $90M flop that was cut before filming was done as she shares behind-the-scene clips of the cast joking around on set
By Ronny Reyes for Dailymail.com
Batgirl star Leslie Grace has spoken out for the first time after Warner Bros executives axed the $90 million movie, and shared behind-the-scenes pictures and footage from the film’s production.
Writing on Instagram following criticism of the sudden canceling from directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah on Wednesday, the actress said she was proud of the movie executives deemed ‘awful’ following test screenings.
‘Querida familia! On the heels of the recent news about our movie ‘Batgirl,’ I am proud of the love, hard work and intention all of our incredible cast and tireless crew put into this film over seven months in Scotland,’ Grace wrote.
‘I feel blessed to have worked among absolute greats and forged relationships for a lifetime in the process! To every Batgirl fan – THANK YOU for the love and belief, allowing me to take on the cape and become, as Babs said best, ‘my own damn hero!”’
As she stood by the movie, Grace – who was set to star in the lead role as Batgirl – shared videos and pictures of the production, including several photos of herself in the Batgirl costume and of the crew having fun.
Leslie Grace, who was set to star as Batgirl, defended the $90 million movie on Thursday after Warner Brothers executives canceled it
‘I am proud of the love, hard work and intention all of our incredible cast and tireless crew put into this film over seven months in Scotland,’ Grace wrote
As she stood by the movie, Grace shared videos and pictures of the production
Grace also showed off a video and her and her colleagues singing and dancing along to Nelly Furtado’s Promiscuous inside a tent
‘I am proud of the love, hard work and intention all of our incredible cast and tireless crew put into this film over seven months in Scotland,’ Grace wrote
One of the photos shows Grace posing in the purple superhero attire, complete with a black cape, flowing red hair and the Batgirl cowl over her face.
Another photo shows off Grace in blood and bruise makeup, relaxing inside a tent while wearing the costume. The actress was also wearing a large jacket and winter cap over the outfit.
Along with a photo of her unmasked, bloodied and bruised, Grace also shared what appears to be a picture from the film set of her and another actor running near a large fire.
Grace also posted a video of her and her co-stars singing along to Nelly Furtado’s Promiscuous inside a tent as they laughed.
At one point in the video, Grace jokes that Babs, the Batgirl character, can twerk as she dances to the song with her fellow actors before sharing a hug.
Another video Grace shared shows her in a dressing room removing her microphone and adjusting her costume’s pants as she sings Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You.
Grace’s defense of the movie came just hours after the directors voiced their disbelief that the movie had been canned, saying they wished Batgirl could have been shown to fans across the world.
But God willing ‘inshAllah’ it will be one day, Arbi and Fallahsaid said.
Another video Grace shared shows her in a dressing room removing her microphone and adjusting her costume’s pants as she sings Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You
Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the two directors of axed Batgirl, have spoken out after Warner Bros dropped the movie. Writing on Instagram, they wrote: ‘We are saddened and shocked by the news. We still can’t believe it’
The two directors wrote the statement to fans on social media, ending with the slogan ‘Batgirl For Life’
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