During a recent interview at the Toronto International Film Festival to promote his new film The Whale, actor Brendan Fraser shared his thoughts on Warner Bros. Discovery abandoning Batgirl and about actress Leslie Grace, who took on the title role. Fraser played the supervillain known as Firefly in the movie.
“Well, stop talking about it because Gunnar Weidenfels does not want people thinking about this,” Fraser joked. “That’s what I read.”
Fraser was referencing comments that Wiedenfels, Warner Bros. Discovery CFO, made during a recent conference. He said the story of Batgirl’s demise was “blown out of proportion.” Fraser called the decision to kill the movie “disappointing.”
“The fans really wanted to see this film made,” he said. “I was there — Leslie Grace is a dynamo. She’s like a power q-tip. She just goes for it. She looks great in the outfit. The movie itself was shot and conceived for a smaller screen. In this age that we’ve come out of now, between streaming service versus theatrical, it wound up being the canary in the coal mine. So, what can we learn from this? Work with trusted filmmakers.”
During the 74th Annual Emmy Awards Monday night (September 12), actor Michael Keaton was also asked about Batgirl. Keaton was to reprise his role as Batman in the movie before it was shelved.
“I think it was a business decision,” Keaton told TVLine. “I’m going to assume it was a good one. I really don’t know. I don’t follow that that much.”
Last month, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said the studio was “not going to put a movie out unless we believe in it.” Reports indicated that the studio planned on scrapping the nearly completed film, so it could take a tax write-off and recoup the costs.