Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the directors of the recently shelved Batgirl project, have stated that they don’t have any footage saved but remain confident that the film will be completed and published one day.
In an interview for the SKRIPT YouTube channel, they shared further facts about Warner Bros.’s sudden decision to cancel the Batgirl film. They were told by the Warner executives, “The guys from Warners told us, ‘it was not a talent problem from our part or the actress, or even the quality of the movie, they told us it was a strategic change. There was new management, and they wanted to save some money. First, when I heard the news, I was shocked, I didn’t know how to react. I wanted to break stuff, cry, even laugh. I was like, ‘this is not happening.”
They were in Morocco for El Arbi’s wedding when they learned of the news of Batgirl’s shelving.
Also, Fallah added that he was taken aback by the public reaction and support for the movie’s shelving from the social media trend #ReleaseBatgirl.
“Seeing all the support on Twitter, and even from big directors Edgar Wright and James Gunn, who sent us supportive messages, it was comforting. After all we make movies for the audience, not for us. We just hope that one day the movie will be released, for the cast and crew. We are a small family.”
The interviewer suggested if there would be something similar like Zack Synder cut Justice League possible for Batgirl. They said that a lot of work is needed before that can happen. “Before it’s released one day, there would be a lot of work still to do. Just like the Snyder Cut, Batgirl cannot be released in its current state. There’s no VFX, we still had to shoot some scenes. So if [Warners] wanted us to release the Batgirl movie they would need to give us the means to do it. To finish it properly with our vision.”
Commenting further, they said the studio had blocked their access to the production server.
No, we have nothing! Adil called me and said, ‘go ahead shoot some things on your cellphone.’ I went on the server, and everything was blocked.