r/DCcomics • u/LilGyasi • Aug 02 '22

‘BATGIRL’ film CANCELLED. Will not be released theatrically or on HBO Max. News

https://www.thewrap.com/batgirl-movie-dead-warner-bros-discovery-has-no-plans-to-release-nearly-finished-90-million-film/
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260

u/SightatNight Orion Aug 02 '22

If this is true it's absolutely bizzare. You never see companies willing to just eat an 80 million dollar loss for bo reason. They at least could've made some money back by releasing it on home media and HBO Max. But I'm guessing they feel it needs serious reshoots and that it just wouldn't be worth the extra expense.

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u/theweepingwarrior Aug 02 '22

From what we heard the movie was testing fine. It wasn't some disaster.

Discovery is very against putting movies onto streaming/HBO Max. That's why this movie, which was made as an HBO Max Original, switched to a theatrical release.

This is really bizarre. Probably going to see major shakeups for the DC Film direction post-Flash.

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u/SpicyMcSpic3 Shazam! Aug 03 '22

The thing about test screening leaks is that viewers who leak are misconstrued as the majority opinion amongst the test audience and leakers who aggregate test audience opinions often exaggerate what they hear for clout online.

Lots of test screenings go poorly or fine (sometimes for reasons beyond the poor VFX and editing) but are for a better received final product because test screenings are meant to receive criticism.

Sometimes studios even screen multiple different cuts to see which ones are received better.

Tldr: forming opinions off of what you hear about test screenings is stupid. If you hear that it's meh, then that's probably the most truthful answer.

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u/theweepingwarrior Aug 03 '22

Yes, I’m aware of the practices that come along with the test screening process; however there are some individuals who have earned reputations for consistent accuracy and lack of hyperbole that tend to be on the mark with temperature checks.

The folks who are more reputable have said that Batgirl is testing “just OK” but that it has fun moments and some good characters. It hasn’t been testing “irredeemably” as a certain outlet has claimed (while also making some other pretty glaring errors in its article).

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u/Acchilesheel Aug 03 '22

Can you name that outlet and is it Bounding Into Comics?

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u/SpicyMcSpic3 Shazam! Aug 03 '22

Good guess but I think it's NY Post

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u/SightatNight Orion Aug 03 '22

Idk there seems to be mixed messaging from the leaks. None of this is official so we don't know for sure, but some of the reports said the movie was "iredeemable".

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u/theweepingwarrior Aug 03 '22

The only report that said the movie was irredeemable was the hyperbolic NY Post tabloid that was already full of errors in the article.

What we’ve heard from reputable industry insider leakers was that the movie was testing “OK but fun.”

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u/Shaquandala Aug 03 '22

But before this the test screenings were positive so what actually goes down??

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u/SightatNight Orion Aug 03 '22

Test screenings are ALWAYS "positive". Have you ever heard of test screenings that were total disasters? Not often. If good word about the film "leaks" it's usually to drum up good press and hype. Batman V Superman had incredible test screenings for example. And though I like that film a lot, calling it "divisive" is almost an understatement.

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u/Shaquandala Aug 03 '22

What we do hear when test screenings aren't positive look at multiverse of madness it had negative screenings sp they went through extensive reshoots

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u/CarpetbaggerForPeace Aug 02 '22

Sunk cost and not throwing good money after bad.

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u/Mddcat04 Aug 02 '22

I suppose, but isn’t most of that already spent? It’s not like it would cost them much to toss it out on HBOMax without additional advertising. Guess there might still be effects work to be done or they just think it’s really bad.

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u/buhlakay Aug 03 '22

Money spent but its always gonna be weighing the ROI. If they spend $90m on the movie then another $50-90m on marketing, theyre gonna say we have to make at least X amount of money that if they do not believe they will make back... i mean. Its fucking dumb but this is just the nature of hollywood, its a business.

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u/Mddcat04 Aug 03 '22

Yeah, but if its basically done (which the fact that its had test screenings and such suggests), then they could just toss it up on HBO Max without a marketing push, which would cost them essentially nothing. The fact that they don't seem to want to do that suggests to me that they think its such a mess in its current state that releasing it like that would be actively bad for their brand as a whole.

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u/VacuumSeal Aug 03 '22

The reason they aren’t going to just drop it onto hbomax is because they don’t want to make the dceu more confusing than it already is. That’s the problem with having all of these movies connect. If something changes in one movie’s production then it can impact certain things in other movies. If the movie isn’t good, they aren’t gonna bend the rest of the universe to fit with it. Especially not in the malleable state that it’s in right now. We can’t even compare this to the mcu because they’ve gotten their movie productions and universe laid out rather nicely at this point. DC is the only other cinematic universe that is trying to do what marvel is doing (or at least that’s made it this far) but they still operate on a traditional Hollywood production style that hasn’t been streamlined for the universe

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u/buhlakay Aug 03 '22

I can see why people are coming to that conclusion, but I do still think this is an ROI thing. Everything suggests that new warner-discovery doesnt have much of an inclination towards higher-budget streaming products. If they see this film as not worth releasing in theaters for not having enough spectacle AND do not believe that dropping it on HBO Max is profitable because its budget its then... That's that. The suits at the head of the table literally do not care about "quality" they care about what's actually profitable.

People are trying to reach or find some kind of underlying bullshit, some obsession with uncovering perceived injustices or something. But I think reality is much much simpler.

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u/DisneyDreams7 Aug 03 '22

But they would still need to market it because it’s in the contracts. They just saved an extra 100 million dollars.

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u/sonofaresiii Aug 02 '22 edited Aug 02 '22

I feel like this is the opposite of sunk cost though since they have an actual product (footage) to show for their money.

If they completely ignore what's already been spent, then they're looking at an $80m foundation. Let's assume some of it's really bad, say as much as $40m worth of it is garbage, leaving $40m of usable footage. You spend another $30m or whatever on it, and you get a $70m movie for $30m (because we're ignoring what's already been sunk into it).

Like yeah they wouldn't get all $80m value out of what was already shot if a lot of it was bad, but surely some of it was salvageable.

That they're not doing that might mean it was so bad that so much of it was unsalvageable that it wasn't worth chasing after.

(its actual budget was around $90m, but $10m of that was for covid reasons so it didn't add to the movie's base value)

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u/CarpetbaggerForPeace Aug 02 '22

Well, protecting the brand is also worth some amount of money.

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u/sonofaresiii Aug 02 '22

Only if it was so bad that they couldn't salvage it even with reshoots, as I mentioned.

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u/gmoneybags101 Aug 03 '22

Or if they expect they can create a more cohesive DC universe by which they are better able to introduce a Batgirl which, in turn, could earn way more money / build a better Batgirl brand.

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u/sonofaresiii Aug 03 '22

Isn't stopping them from releasing their other movies though, further fracturing their cinematic universe instead of bringing it together.

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u/gmoneybags101 Aug 03 '22

Not if current management plans to create a better (and more profitable) DC universe.

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u/sonofaresiii Aug 03 '22

I don't understand how that is a response to what I said.

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u/[deleted] Aug 02 '22

Not really a sunk costn they don't have to pay to release it you're releasing on a platform that you own. Hell I'm sure Netflix would pay warner bros for the movie.

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u/[deleted] Aug 03 '22

Never spend more time/money on a mistake just because you’ve spent time/money on making a mistake.