Brendan Fraser Slams ‘Batgirl’ Cancellation, Says Hollywood’s Obsession With “Content” Is A “Blight” On Film Making
Though his role as the first silver screen Firefly has long since passed into the annals of comic book movie history, Brendan Fraser still feels burned by Batgirl‘s unceremonious cancellation, especially as he believes the entire affair represents just how little Hollywood actually cares about the art of film making.
Fraser, whose take on Ted Carson differed from the original comics in that his crime spree was motivated by his military benefits being denied to him rather than a failed special effects career, offered this reflection on his short-lived DC career while discussing his upcoming film Rental Family with the Associated Press‘ Jake Coyle.
However, rather than getting to Batgirl directly, the pair arrived at the topic after Fraser was asked as to whether his winning of the 2022 Academy Award for Best Actor, as awarded for his performance in The Whale, had affected any significant changes in his career.
“Honestly, I was kind of floating during that whole time without an agent,” Fraser began.
“I was looking for that unicorn project that hadn’t been made into oblivion. I ended up: What is a rental family? Which dog do you like at the pound? I like the one with four teeth and one tweaky eye. [Rental Family co-writer] Hikari gave me the opportunity to kind of dovetail from whatever happens in the vacuum after you experience a recognition like that.
“I think about it often. In that envelope-opening-reveal moment that we all crave, it could have gone any way. It could have been any of the guys. It was a moment of: I guess things are going to be a little different going forward. It doesn’t intone automatic, carte-blanche VIP. It’s still the industry. We’re still chopping our way through the tall grass of AI and all this stuff. The industry needs a real B-12 or something.”
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In response to this criticism, Fraser was then met by the observation from Coyle that “Well, one sign of the state of the industry was the shelving of the completed “Batgirl,” in which you co-starred,” prompting the actor to pick-up his rhetorical flamethrower and let loose on Hollywood’s ever-worsening respect for the very medium it trades in:
“A whole movie. I mean, there were four floors of production in Glasgow. I was sneaking into the art department just to geek out. The tragedy of that is that there’s a generation of little girls who don’t have a heroine to look up to and go, ‘She looks like me.’ I mean, Michael Keaton came back as Batman. The Batman! The product — I’m sorry, ‘content’ — is being commodified to the extent that it’s more valuable to burn it down and get the insurance on it than to give it a shot in the marketplace. I mean, with respect, we could blight itself.”
Notably, this is not the first time Fraser has publicly spoken on his feelings towards Batgirl‘s abrupt shelving.
Recalling the moment he learned of its cancellation, the actor told Variety in 2023, “I thought I was getting punked, but it checked out.”
“Then came hysterical laughter like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me?’ I know that the filmmakers and producers were expecting to hear from the studio about the film, and the anticipation was, ‘How do we broaden the movie out to take it from a streaming format to a theatrical release?’ But as we all know, it was the complete opposite. When we were expecting XYZ amount of support and money to expand scenes — to do pickup shots and those kinds of things — that was a gut punch. But then we learned that it was in the interest of writing down some debt? That part really stung.”
“What I find most lamentable is that now a whole generation of little girls are going to have to wait longer to see a Batgirl and say, ‘Hey, she looks like me,” he continued, “That makes me sad. I know how good she was. And I know what this would mean to so many people.”
“It was just magical to see how [star Leslie Grace] was as quietly confident as a young actress in this breakthrough role and had a sense of purpose and dignity. She has a work ethic that is unrivaled. She’s dynamite — and dynamite comes in small packages but still goes bang. We do battle each other several times. There was a lot of kicking and punching and getting hurt but we were always help each other to our feet after breaking set pieces and knocking the tar out of each other.”
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