Leslie Grace Responds to Batgirl Not Being Released

Batgirl is throwing up a Bat signal one last time before hanging up her cowl.

Leslie Grace took to her Instagram Wednesday night to share her thoughts on the DC film being shelved by Warner Bros. Discovery without hope of being released in any format. “Batgirl” was expected to be a direct-to-HBO Max movie and hit the service late this year or in early 2023. Grace would have been the first Latina lead in a film based on a DC Comics character.

“Querida familia!” Grace wrote. “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 7 months in Scotland. 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!’ #Batgirl for life! ?“

The news that Warner Bros. Discovery was shelving a movie that had already been shot, and into which $90 million had been poured, just to get a tax write-off, came as a shock to the industry this week. As was the news that WBD’s CEO David Zaslav is ending the idea of HBO Max being a destination for original, high-budgeted tentpole movies. (Though he’s quibbled with smaller budgeted films as well, as his thoughts about Clint Eastwood’s “Cry Macho” attested.)

Grace also added a page from a “Batgirl” comic to her Instagram Stories. It features dialogue from the title character that says, “I have to find another path. Divine my own future. One uniquely mine. Not a page from someone else’s book. Not a fate that begins and ends on Page One.”

“Batgirl” was directed by “Bad Boys for Life” helmers Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah from a script by “Bumblebee” and “Birds of Prey” screenwriter Christina Hodson. It also starred J.K. Simmons, Brendan Fraser, and Michael Keaton, reprising his role as Batman for the first time since 1992’s “Batman Returns.”

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