Beloved actor Brendan Fraser has commented further on the sudden cancelation of the Batgirl movie, describing the decision as “tragic.” Speaking with Variety, Fraser said that he feels that such decision-making negatively affects the trust between filmmakers and studios, before heaping praise on his Batgirl co-star Leslie Grace.
“It’s tragic. It doesn’t engender trust among filmmakers and the studio. Leslie Grace was fantastic. She’s a dynamo, just a spot-on performer. Everything that we shot was real and exciting and just the antithesis of doing a straightforward digital all green screen thing. They ran firetrucks around downtown Glasgow at 3 in the morning and they had flamethrowers. It was a big-budget movie, but one that was just stripped down to the essentials.”
Batgirl was being directed by Bad Boys for Life filmmakers Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah from a screenplay by Christina Hodson and would have starred Leslie Grace as Batgirl, alongside J. K. Simmons, Jacob Scipio, Rebecca Front, Corey Johnson, Ethan Kai, Michael Keaton, and Brendan Fraser as Firefly, the villain of the piece.
Batgirl was unceremoniously canceled in August, and while details behind the decision have been somewhat vague, it seems that Batgirl’s $90 million budget was ultimately determined to be more valuable as a tax write-off. It has also been reported that Batgirl, which was due for release on HBO Max, went against the new mandate from CEO David Zaslav to make DC movies "big theatrical event films."
Fraser continued, revealing that he never got see Batgirl in whatever state it was in at the time. While he does say that directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah had put together a rough cut together, he does not “eat half-baked cake.” Fraser went on to praise the directors saying, “Everything that Adil and Bilall shot felt real and exciting.”
Batgirl would have told the origin of the character amid small, personal stakes. Sadly, we will never find out how “real and exciting” Batgirl was.
Brendan Fraser Will Next Appear in Oscar Favorite The Whale
Though it is now unlikely that we will ever see Brendan Fraser as a DC villain, the Brenaissance continues, with The Mummy star now an Academy Award favorite for his performance in director Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale. A performance that has already won Fraser several awards and standing ovations.
Based on the 2012 play by Samuel D. Hunter, The Whale will find Brendan Fraser leading the latest outing from Darren Aronofsky as Charlie, a 600-pound middle-aged man who tries to reconnect with his 17-year-old daughter. The two have grown apart after Charlie abandoned his family for his gay lover, who later died, which led to Charlie binge-eating out of pain and guilt.
Directed by Darren Aronofsky and written by Samuel D. Hunter, The Whale stars Hong Chau, Samantha Morton, and Ty Simpkins alongside Brendan Fraser with Sadie Sink, who is best known for starring in Netflix’s Stranger Things and the Fear Street trilogy, starring as Ellie, Charlie's daughter.
The Whale premiered at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 4, 2022, and is scheduled to be theatrically released in the United States on December 9, 2022, by A24.