With the exciting news that BatFleck will be returning to play beside Jason Momoa in Aquaman 2, unfortunately, the upcoming movie, Batgirl, that we’ve all been looking forward to, has now been canceled. Originally scheduled to release later this year, the movie was in its final stages when the news came.
Batgirl was just one of many movies that the new leadership of Warner Bros. Discovery has canceled due to their broad cost-cutting in an attempt to recreate the studio’s future plans. Directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the movie starred Leslie Grace as Barbra Gordon (Batgirl/Oracle), as well as bringing back Michael Keaton to reprise his role as Batman and J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon. They even had Brendan Fraser as Firefly!
When the rumors first started to surface, many believed that the movie had simply been shelved for a later time. There may be a chance that it could be released eventually, especially as it was almost finished, but for now, it has been canceled completely. The reason the studio leadership gave for cutting Batgirl, was that it “doesn’t feel cinematic enough to be given a theatrical release”.
Due to delays, the release schedule for The Flash was moved back several months after Aquaman and the Last Kingdom, where we will see yet another Batman veteran return: Ben Affleck. Keaton will still be slipping back into his cowl, however, in The Flash, after the hero does what he’s known for doing and messes around with the timeline. Batgirl was set after the events that will transpire after Flash accidentally swaps one Batman for another, so having it released before the other two probably wouldn’t have made too much sense for that part. This leads us back to the “maybe it is shelved?” from earlier.
For now, I wouldn’t hold my breath about Batgirl eventually being released though.
With Aquaman 2 now being the next DC movie, it was confirmed that Ben Affleck would be returning, but he might not be donning the cowl again and returning as only Bruce Wayne instead. This news spread quickly after a WB studio tour accidentally caught Affleck and Momoa on set. Since the surprise was out, the Aquaman star posted a video of them on his Instagram, before releasing a photo of them together saying that Arthur and Bruce were reunited.
Batfleck fans are very excited to see him back, although we don’t know if this possibly surprise cameo will be the last. Again. Now that we have Robert Pattinson playing a different Batman in an alternate universe, and Keaton stepping in to bring back another version of Batman in The Flash, we aren’t too sure exactly what’s to come. Especially with the new studio leadership making such drastic changes to the films already in production.
Aquaman and the Last Kingdom is set to be released on March 23th 2023, with The Flash following shortly after on June 23rd.
What are your thoughts about these changes? Are you hoping that Batgirl will be released eventually? Are you excited to see Batfleck back in action? Tell us in the comments.
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