Oh poor Batgirl. Just five years ago feminists and nerds alike were hyped when Patty Jenkin’s Wonder Woman ( Gal Gadot ) released and was actually a really good and enjoyable movie. It combined action, good story, a well paced plot and provided a backstory to DC’s most infamous heroin.
Since then women-led superhero flicks have been in high demand, though admittadly less successful. Captain Marvel was…meh if you ask me. Black Widow was alright, Birds of Prey was a good premise with an unguided miss, and Wonder Woman 2, the sequel to a great film was like the equivelant of watching Tommy Wiseau direct a Lord of the Rings movie set on Mars with Gandalf being played by Shrek. And I mean that in a bad way.
So I guess you could say that Batgirl had some studio pressure to bring the lady heroes back to the map of quality cinema. The film would have starred Leslie Grace as the titular character, with Michael Keaton and JK Simmons return to their roles of Batman and J Jonah – I mean Jim Gordon respectively. Doom Patrol’s Brendan Fraser ( who I guess loves playing in superhero things ) would have played Firefly. As for the actual plot and story…not much is known.
This isn’t even the first time a superhero flick never got released because it was that bad. Take the 1994 Fantastic Four movie boasting an incredible 3.8/ 10 on Imbd. It’s sole purpose of creation was just to keep the rights from returning back to Marvel. Why didn’t they release it on DVD or something at least? Because it was THAT BAD! If I were the studio I still would’ve at least rent that flick out to Blockbuster or something. Couldn’t of been worse than Josh Trank’s tragedy of a motion picture, that’s for sure.
So…is there any hope we will ever actually get to see this movie? In the near future, unlikely. Down the line as a “Netflix Original” or something of the lot, probably. I’d say give it a few years and someway somehow this thing’ll get released. Or maybe they’ll just release a handful of DVDS so that the directors can hunt down every copy and smash them with a sledgehammer.
Fun fact – according to Imdb THE Sylvester Stallone was in negotiations for the role of Firefly, but it ultimatly didn’t work out. So Brendan Fraser got he part instead. Gotta wonder if they’d let a movie costarring Rambo go on the shelf or not.
-The Screenwriter
By reading this article, you’re helping support the TSJ community, thank you!
All photos use follow this license –