The decision of Warner Bros. Discovery to ax Batgirl starring Dominican-American Leslie Grace has been blasted by Kevin Smith, who pointed out that canceling the Latine-led $90 million picture wouldn’t help the studio’s image.
“It’s an incredibly bad look to cancel the Latina Batgirl movie,” Smith said. “I don’t give a sh** if the movie was absolute f***ing dogsh** — I guarantee you that it wasn’t. The two directors who directed that movie did a couple of episodes of Ms. Marvel, and it was a wonderful f***ing show and they had more money to do Batgirl than they had to do an episode of Ms. Marvel and stuff,” expresses Smith on the latest episode of his Hollywood Babble-On series.
Grace reacted on Aug 3 but in a more diplomatic way: “Querida familia! On the heels of the recent news about our movie Batgirl, I am proud of the love, hard work, and intention all of our incredible cast and tireless crew put into this film over 7 months in Scotland,” the actress wrote in her social media. “I feel blessed to have worked among absolute greats and forged relationships for a lifetime in the process! To every Batgirl fan – THANK YOU for the love and belief, allowing me to take on the cape and become, as Babs said best, ‘My own damn hero!’”
Besides the blessings by Smith, the directing duo of Adil El Arbi and Billal Fallah have also been receiving supporting messages from Marvel’s Kevin Feige and directors James Gunn and Edgar Wright. The movie would also see the return of Michael Keaton as Batman.
Still, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has expressed that Batgirl wasn’t viable to be released, and insiders believe that the Supergirl picture starring Sasha Calle, who is from Colombian heritage, might be the next in the bossman’s crosshairs. On the other hand, the mostly Latine Blue Beetle isn’t expected to suffer the same fate due to it having a promised theatrical release.
These moves not only jeopardize the already troubled presence of DC characters on the screen but also inclusion and diversity not only in Tinseltown but in the entertainment business as a whole.