After being scrapped earlier this month, the DC Comics film Batgirl will be shown in Warner Bros.’ studio lot as a “funeral screening” for people who worked on the movie, both cast and crew, as well as representatives and executives.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Batgirl “funeral screenings” would be hosted this week before it is sent to an undisclosed afterlife, with footage locked away in a vault, either physical or digital.
The $90 million film was doing test screenings for audiences in anticipation of a late 2022 release but the test screenings were so poorly received by moviegoers that on August 2 the production studio confirmed that the movie, which was already in post-production, will no longer be premiered this year.
Warner Bros. also had a recent merger with Discovery which put a new leader into the company.
Discovery CEO David Zaslav is said to have opted to scrap the project in order to get a $3 billion tax write-down amid plans to save the newly-merged company. Warner Bros. may also go through the trouble of physically destroying footage of the movie in order to demonstrate that there will never be any revenue from the project.
Zaslav was also behind scrapping the $300 million streaming service CNN+ days after its launch because it did not attain enough subscribers.
The directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah had already completed their work on Batgirl when they learned of the studio’s decision and were not allowed to view any of the footage.
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