Kevin Smith Lashes Out at Warner Bros. For Canceling DC's BATGIRL
Kevin Smith recently spoke out against Warner Bros. shelving DC’s Batgirl movie during the latest episode of his Hollywood Babble-On. A lot of fans were surprised by the news and are wondering what that means for some of the other upcoming films like The Flash, and other DC projects. When talking about Batgirl, Smith said:
“It’s an incredibly bad look to cancel the Latina ‘Batgirl’ movie. I don’t give a shit if the movie was absolute fucking dog shit – I guarantee you that it wasn’t. The two directors [Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi] who directed that movie did a couple of episodes of ‘Ms. Marvel,’ and it was a wonderful fucking show and they had more money to do ‘Batgirl’ than they had to do an episode of ‘Ms. Marvel’ and stuff.”
WB spent $90 million on Batgirl, but the new studio heads scrapped it because they said that it wasn’t blockbuster movie material. But, another driving force behind the decision was the tax write-off. The only way Warner Bros. can write the film off is if it does not get a release in any capacity.
Now, there are also reports that claimed Batgirl test screenings were a disaster and that the film was “irredeemable,” but Smith has a hard time believing that, saying he doubts the film is “absolute fucking dog shit.” He uses The CW shows as an example:
“I love all the CW shows, but the CW shows show their budgetary constraints. They said ‘Batgirl’ looked too cheap because it was a $90 million movie. How do you make a cheap-looking $90 million movie? If it looked slightly better than an episode of ‘Arrow’ then why couldn’t we see that?”
He then goes on to explain how he’s confused by the fact that Batgirl is not being released, but The Flash, which has big issues with its lead actor Ezra Miller, is still being released:
“That is the baffling thing. I don’t give a shit how bad the ‘Batgirl’ movie is, nobody in that movie is complicated or has anything in their real life you have to market around. In ‘The Flash’ movie, we all know there’s a big problem! Flash is the Reverse-Flash in real life.”
What do you think about Smith’s opinion on what WB is doing with Batgirl? Does he make some valid points?