DC’s Canceled Batgirl Movie Addressed By Star 4 Years Later: “It’s Bizarre”

J.K. Simmons speaks out about Batgirl‘s cancellation.

Directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, Batgirl was set to star Leslie Grace as the titular DC hero, with Simmons playing Commissioner Gordon, Brander Fraser as Firefly, and Michael Keaton returning as Batman. As the superhero movie was in post-production in August 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav made the decision to scrap the project completely as a tax write-off.

In a recent interview with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Simmons shares his thoughts on Warner Bros.’ Discovery’s decision to cancel Batgirl, calling the experience “bizarre.” Simmons recognizes that the cancellation was a “business decision,” but looks back fondly on the filming experience and reveals that test scores for the movie weren’t poor. Check out Simmons’ comment below:

“It’s bizarre… Apparently, one test audience saw it, and, you know, it wasn’t like it was like a bad score from the test audience. It was a whatever business decision, obviously… It was an exciting prospect to be part of the origin story of Batgirl… We really had a good time making it and, you know, thought it was going to be a fun superhero movie.”

Interestingly, Simmons’ comment goes against early reports about the cancellation, which cited poor test screenings as a major reason for the cancellation. Test scores aside, the scrapping of the movie was also part of a more broad restructuring following the merger between Warner Media and Discovery Inc. in spring 2022.

Brooke Palmer/MGM+

At the time, the company was pivoting to focus more on major theatrical releases. Batgirl was budgeted at $90 million and was slated to release on HBO Max. It occupied an unfortunate middle ground between a major theatrical release and a lower-budgeted streaming movie. Instead of spending additional money repositioning the film for theaters, Warner Bros. Discovery opted to shelve it and take a tax write-down as part of post-merger restructuring efforts.

Simmons is one of several people involved in the production to speak out about Batgirl‘s cancellation. Fraser lamented the “tragedy” of female audiences losing out on Grace’s take on the superhero, as well as the commodification of entertainment. He told the Associated Press:

“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,”

Grace also shared a comment about the cancellation, denying claims that poor test screenings resulted in the film being deemed “unreleasable.” “The film that I got to see — the scenes that were there — was incredible,” she told Variety. “There was definitely potential for a good film, in my opinion.”

In the four years since Batgirl‘s cancellation, some scenes have leaked online, but the full film remains entirely unreleased. DC has now moved far beyond the Grace-led superhero movie, with DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran having now released Superman (2025) and Supergirl (2026), the latter of which recently underwhelmed in theaters.