Batgirl – the Walter Hamada-era DCEU continuation that would’ve brought Leslie Grace into the fold as Barbara Gordon – was canceled to give Warner Bros. Discovery a tax break last year before DC Studios was established and the new team, James Gunn and Peter Safran, was hired. This led everyone to speculate about its quality with insiders agreeing the film was so-so at best.
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Safran went on the record on WBD’s behalf to assure all the unfinished film was bad and altogether “not releasable.” He also said, “It would have hurt DC and those people involved,” from Grace to directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. One can assume the executive was also talking about stars Michael Keaton and Brendan Fraser.
After such a negative assessment from the very top of the system, it was improbable that someone with anything nice to say about Batgirl would be found or that anything good could be taken away from its controversy. But, all these months later, noted Twitter scooper ViewerAnon is defending the movie and revealing new details.
After revealing that the film’s Gotham City resembled Tim Burton’s from 1989 – which new leaked images bear out – Anon tells he saw it during a test screening last year and, throwing caution to the wind, gives a reaction bound to be surprising to some people. ViewerAnon considers Batgirl solid and goes on to give it a six out of ten.
“It wasn’t terrible by a long shot,” he tweeted. “I’d give it a 6 which isn’t bad at all for a test screening. Just needed standard reshoots to tweak stuff.”
The need for reshoots should come as no big shock since Batgirl was in the middle of being edited and required completion of the visual effects, based on most accounts.
With Keaton returning to run point and coaching the novice hero Barbara, Batgirl had to connect to The Flash and, what’s more, come out after to fit into the revised continuity. However, ViewerAnon does not remember seeing any references to the Speedster’s floundering FX-soaked adventure. “Not that I remember but it’s been awhile,” he said.
Conversely, he recalled Keaton was great in the few scenes he had, and similarly so was Brendan Fraser as Firefly, whom ViewerAnon argues was the best part.
We could have seen more of them too, possibly, as Batgirl “set up its own sequel.”
Whether anyone wanted a Batgirl sequel or not at any point during WB’s turmoil is a question for another time.