DC’s slate of comic book films has been rife with missteps and cancellations over the years. Even going back to scrapped plans for a sequel to 2006’s Superman Returns or the attempted course correction in the DCEU, their superhero roster has hit some bumpy roads. Cyborg was meant to have a much larger impact on the DCEU, as shown in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. James Gunn’s DCU also hasn’t been free of cancellations, with plans for a film based on The Authority seemingly already scrapped. However, the most notorious of all may just be what happened with Batgirl.
Warner Bros. decided to scrap Batgirl in 2022, with Gunn and Peter Safran brought in as part of the overhaul shortly afterward. Batgirl would have seen Leslie Grace playing Barbara Gordon, along with Michael Keaton returning as Bruce Wayne/Batman. Brendan Fraser was experiencing a career renaissance, playing Firefly, with J.K. Simmons returning to portray Commissioner Gordon, whom he first played in 2017’s Justice League. Batgirl was said to be largely finished, with it even having a test screening. The studio chose to shelve the film and write it off as a tax loss, ensuring the world never saw the finished product.
Simmons recently appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, speaking with host Josh Horowitz when the subject of Batgirl came up. Horowitz addressed the drama surrounding the film’s cancellation and inquired whether the actor ever saw a cut of the movie. As it turns out, not even Simmons was privy to seeing an edit of Batgirl. Still, the Commissioner Gordon star feels “it was an exciting prospect to be part of the origin of Batgirl.”
“No. Apparently one test audience saw it, and it wasn’t like it was a bad score from the test audience. It was a whatever, business decision, obviously. Justice League, which was a very small part, had its own drama attached to it. But then Zack’s [Snyder] cut, the Director’s Cut – which the DC fans really love – came out, which was really fun. But when Batgirl came along with Adil and Bilall [the directors], it was an exciting prospect to be part of the origin of Batgirl; for those who don’t know: Commissioner Gordon’s daughter. Maybe we’ll never know.”
When asked about his time working on the film, Simmons noted that his experience on set was great, working with directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, who had already made the hit sequel Bad Boys for Life.
“It was a very good experience. Yeah, we really had a good time making it, and thought it was gonna be a fun superhero movie.”
Horowitz mentions that Batgirl’s cancellation feels like “one of the strangest stories.” Simmons can’t do anything but agree and shrug it off to forces outside his control, saying, “Oh well.” The world is unlikely ever to see Batgirl, leaving the project one of the great canceled films in cinema history. As seen with past films like Coyote vs. Acme, which was under a similar threat of being shelved, it is possible to come back from the brink. However, Batgirl’s chance of seeing the light of day is slim at best.
Simmons has continued to thrive in superhero projects, with Simmons voicing Omni-Man in the animated hit series Invincible. He also has several projects on the horizon, including The Westies series and Purgatory, a comedic family drama. Batgirl is likely to have screen time in upcoming DCU projects, but that remains to be seen. For now, Batgirl’s movie fate remains “one of the strangest stories.”
