BATGIRL Star Brendan Fraser On Being "Blindsided" By Cancellation News: "I Thought I Was Getting Punked"

BATGIRL Star Brendan Fraser On Being "Blindsided" By Cancellation News: "I Thought I Was Getting Punked"

We heard from Leslie Grace earlier today, and her Batgirl co-star Brendan Fraser, who was set to play the villainous Firefly, has now weighed in on the movie's "gut punch" cancellation...

By MarkCassidy - Feb 13, 2023 05:02 PM EST
Filed Under: Batgirl

The news of Batgirl's cancellation after it was already so deep into post-production came as a huge surprise to everyone - including those who worked on the project!

Directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah have already spoken about learning of the HBO Max movie's shelving while they were preparing to do interviews to promote the project, and star Brendan Fraser has now shared his reaction to reading the news online for the first time.

The Academy Award-nominated The Whale actor, who was cast as the villainous Firefly in the film, said he was left completely "blindsided" during an interview with Variety.

“I thought I was getting punked, but it checked out,” he revealed. “Then came hysterical laughter like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me?’ I know that the filmmakers and producers were expecting to hear from the studio about the film, and the anticipation was, ‘How do we broaden the movie out to take it from a streaming format to a theatrical release?’ But as we all know, it was the complete opposite. When we were expecting XYZ amount of support and money to expand scenes — to do pickup shots and those kinds of things — that was a gut punch. But then we learned that it was in the interest of writing down some debt? That part really stung.”

Leslie Grace (Barbara Gordon) disagrees with DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran's assessment that Batgirl was "not releasable," and Fraser shares a similar sentiment.

“It was just magical to see how she was as quietly confident as a young actress in this breakthrough role and had a sense of purpose and dignity,” he adds when asked about working with the young actress. “She has a work ethic that is unrivalled. She’s dynamite — and dynamite comes in small packages but still goes bang. We do battle each other several times. There was a lot of kicking and punching and getting hurt but we were always help each other to our feet after breaking set pieces and knocking the tar out of each other.”

There's a chance Grace might get to suit-up as Batgirl again, but we'd say Fraser returning as Firefly is highly unlikely.

With his star on the rise (again), we're sure he'll have his pick of CBM roles very soon, so let's hope his experience with Batgirl hasn't turned completely turned him off.

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dracula
dracula - 2/13/2023, 5:37 PM
Got to wonder how much it would have cost to get it to a point worth theatrical release

Like what would they need to reshoot the entire movie
bkmeijer1
bkmeijer1 - 2/13/2023, 5:47 PM
@dracula - it still reminds Eric Andre shooting Hannibal, only to then ask who shot Hannibal.

WB ups Batgirl from streaming to theatrical, only to then dip out because costs are too high to get it to that point. It's almost like they did it on purpose to have a reason to drop it.
mastakilla39
mastakilla39 - 2/13/2023, 8:33 PM
@bkmeijer1 - Movie already cost 100 mil the 1st time and to reshoot it to look like a high budget Marvel or DC film they needed to reshoot the whole film again with a higher budget near the 160 mil range which is the avg budget for a brand new MCU solo film. Total cost would've been over 250+ mil without marketing. So the break even point for this project would have been 600+ mil which WB knew it was not going to make back.

@dracula - All the insiders and scoopers who saw it said it was embarrassingly bad and visually cheap looking. Not sure if an extra 100 mil is going to fix a film thats already been cheaply shot. Its like trying to upscale 1 of those fan versus youtube shorts like Wolverine vs Wonder Woman into looking like a feature film that cost over 100 mil....its just not going to work or trick any audience into paying for it. Then if they release it as is its going to hurt all those character's brand who they plan on using again.

Just like Roger Corman's F4 it probably deserves to stay buried.
dagenspear
dagenspear - 2/13/2023, 8:48 PM
@mastakilla39 - What you're saying is debatable, not facts. It's their problem if they produced a product they didn't think was up to scale. Maybe they could've planned their moves better.

Forgive me for not believing "insiders" that I've never met or known. I'll decide what I think the quality of a movie is, not faceless people.

You don't decide this.
bkmeijer1
bkmeijer1 - 2/14/2023, 3:41 AM
@mastakilla39 - yeah, they must have known beforehand it would cost tens of millions of more dollars and they would never make it back.

I really doubt it wouldn't have been up to theatrical standards though. Think it may have been in the same range as Banks' Charlie Angels in terms of looks.
mountainman
mountainman - 2/13/2023, 5:47 PM
I feel like one day there will be a documentary released about this movie.
mastakilla39
mastakilla39 - 2/13/2023, 8:42 PM
@mountainman - No film, tv show, or even pilot stays buried forever. If it doesn't get leaked than 10 to 30 years from now it will probably be given to the American Film Institute or a Hollywood Preservation committee to safe keep for historical purposes. I'm sure we or your grand children will see it 1 day.

The original unaltered Star Wars films can already be seen in such places, its just never going to be released or reproduced for commercial purposes unless someone at WB greenlights it.
BuzzKillington
BuzzKillington - 2/13/2023, 5:48 PM
Too bad for Brendan.

bkmeijer1
bkmeijer1 - 2/13/2023, 5:49 PM
I almost felt punked to, but then I realized it was WBD. Only WBD and Sony could pull off weird CBM decisions that don't surprise me anymore.

Anyway, I hope we get to see Fraser and Grace work together again. I'll take a Mummy 4 with them.
ModHaterSLADE
ModHaterSLADE - 2/13/2023, 5:52 PM
Gotta wonder just how much worse this could've been in comparison to some of the other disappointing releases from the DCU. Doubt this could've been any worse than the first Suicide Squad or Birds Prey, but oh well.
CorndogBurglar
CorndogBurglar - 2/13/2023, 7:44 PM
@ModHaterSLADE - I don't think it was cancelled because it was as bad as Suicide Squad, or any movie. It got cancelled because the production values were trash. It wasn't made to be a theatrical release, and apparently it showed.
dracula
dracula - 2/13/2023, 5:55 PM
After seeing the upgrade suit not surprised that thing looked cheap as hell

The protosuit looked way better (and as a home made thing should look the way it did)
ElJefe
ElJefe - 2/13/2023, 6:07 PM
@dracula - Agree - I really liked the Batgirl suit in the comics, and the comics run itself. One of the few New 52 I enjoyed. I was looking forward to this flick.



CorndogBurglar
CorndogBurglar - 2/13/2023, 7:54 PM
@dracula - Firefly's suit looked like an old 1930's diver suit. Or a beekeeper. Lol.

This thing was a total wreck.
dracula
dracula - 2/13/2023, 8:06 PM
@CorndogBurglar - honestly if this was the 90's and Tim Burton was directing, i could see that suit fitting in just fine in a batman movie.

seems like they were trying to go Burton, but really doesn't fit everything else ive seen from the movie. Outside of having Keaton and what the firefly suit seemed to be going for, nothing it the set photos felt very Burton
Reeds2Much
Reeds2Much - 2/13/2023, 5:57 PM
"I Thought I Was Getting Punked"

After seeing Black Adam that is a reasonable conclusion.
MyCoolYoung
MyCoolYoung - 2/13/2023, 5:58 PM
Oh Brendan no one cares about all the people that worked on this movie silly. Only all the people who worked on the flash that's not Ezra.
DalekCraigWasson
DalekCraigWasson - 2/13/2023, 6:17 PM
@MyCoolYoung - Love it. Not even joking, folks like John Campea legitimately say that about The Flash on one hand and then rant about how Batgirl getting canceled was good for DC. It sets a nasty, nasty precedent that a good movie made by bad people (or at least someone) is preferable to a bad movie made by good people.
MyCoolYoung
MyCoolYoung - 2/13/2023, 7:47 PM
@DalekCraigWasson - exactly. Truer wirsa have never been spoken. I was flabbergasted to read people saying that after reading people rejoice at the batwoman being canceled.

Weird, weird stuff
TheHumanSpider2
TheHumanSpider2 - 2/13/2023, 7:55 PM
@MyCoolYoung - Poor Leslie, she isnt white, nor does she have a penis, she never stood a chance...
MyCoolYoung
MyCoolYoung - 2/13/2023, 8:43 PM
@TheHumanSpider2 - or the rock. People seem to have this false sense of hope when it comes to him. How many of his movies must bomb?
dagenspear
dagenspear - 2/13/2023, 8:43 PM
@TheHumanSpider2 - Let's not pretend like that's the deciding factor, all by itself.
dagenspear
dagenspear - 2/13/2023, 8:44 PM
@MyCoolYoung - Batwoman being cancelled, for me, cool with it. This, I'm not that pleased with.
NinnesMBC
NinnesMBC - 2/13/2023, 7:25 PM
I hope Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah work again with Leslie Grace and Brendan Fraser on another project and it eclipes critically and financially whatever crap that Zaslav is banking on from Gunn and Safran's slate of movies. It'll be the closest that we'll come for an "eye for an eye" situation.

[frick] Zaslav and WBD.
dagenspear
dagenspear - 2/13/2023, 7:39 PM
I'd want to see this movie and how it goes, but I think it was a mistake to push this for a streaming release to begin with. Could've thought bigger earlier, may have been able to assist it.
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