"Shelved" means it won't even get released into a streaming service. No one will see it. It's apparently, unspeakable, irredeemable, and unwatchable.
Could it be the beginning of the end of all this superheroism in movies? I wish, but I doubt it. Apparently only DC comics are in trouble.
Senior entertainment writer at Variety, Adam B. Vary, has been reporting on the Batgirl saga. He notes that the movie was meaningful for fans. "Not only did it have Leslie Grace — a Latina actress — leading the film, but this is work that hundreds, if not thousands, of people spent many, many months of their lives working on," he says. "This movie also had one of the first trans characters, based on a trans character that's in the comic books, played by a trans actor. Michael Keaton was returning to play Batman in this movie. So it really was seen by the fandom with a certain degree of excitement."
Keaton is 70!
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The NBA has fans.
The WNBA does not.
Same reason this movie is being deep-sixed.
I hear the latest phase of Marvel content hasn't performed as well as the older stuff, so maybe that's also a sign of approaching superhero fatigue. I even have a fondness for comic books and assorted media since I was into them when I was a kid, but like you, Althouse, I'm waiting with baited breath for the cultural zeitgeist to move on from the superheroes. I watched Rocky and Patton on a series of flights a few months back. Could we get back to making those kinds of movies?
Was it due to a "Showgirls" (1995) level of bad directing, bad plot, and bad acting, or some lame woke plot that no one liked? DC has been struggling as Marvel became the "high art film leader of the world." Iron Man. X-Men. Hulk. Wolverine. All of them are the fine art of this era.
The only way it works would be to resurrect a young Julie Newmar.
The whole point of superhero movies and TV shows is that they're fun. But DC has spent the past decade or so putting out content that (with some exceptions) has had most of the fun sucked right out, leaving muddled action and boring stories.
Of course, there are apparently other problems with "Batgirl" (like the way it sets up movies about the Flash, starring an actor whose real-life behavior has made him unwatchable). But I think it's probably just a bad movie -- not bad in the kind of disastrous way that can be enjoyable to watch, but dark, turgid and dull.
It's not the end of the superhero nonsense (and total lack of creativity in Hollywood).
It seems like only the beginning.
Ace has a rundown here:
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/400301.php
There are plenty of good comic book stories remaining that could be successfully adapted for the silver screen, and lots of paying customers who want to see them.
The problem is Hollywood has been and continues to be undecided whether their goal is to make good movies (or at least profitable movies) or to virtue signal. There are a lot of people in Hollywood that think their job is to communicate the "message" to the masses while empowering everyone but white men. It is hard enough to make a good movie when your goal is to make a good movie. It is extremely difficult when the story seems secondary to espousing the social justice cause of the hour, produced by persons mainly hired because they provide representation to "diversity" regardless of qualifications, and then goes to great lengths to alienate the majority of their potential paying customers. So far, Hollywood has been mostly sheltered from the consequences of their bad choices because Hollywood is so rich, but it seems they will run out of money eventually.
There is also the matter of catering to China's whims, which is not working well anymore. Hollywood still needs China to boost up whatever crap they release, but China no longer needs Hollywood.
From what I can tell, this wave of Marvel movies and television shows has been generally mediocre. This is perhaps not surprising as they are pushing more and more second and third tier characters that few people care about.
All that said, I do have to wonder how bad Batgirl is that they are going to trash it. It must be horrendously bad to note even try to make back some of the money. It is rare for Hollywood to refuse money, no matter how humiliating it is, but apparently even they have standards.
Lot of money to write off. Maybe rename it Datgirl and see what happens.
Rumor, via Ace at AofSHQ who appears to spend a whale of a lot time keeping up with such stuff, is that this was supposedly the movie to replace The DC Trinity of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman with a new Woke Trinity of Supergirl, Batgirl, and Wonder Woman.
Part of the theory being that if the movie was merely bad it would be released in some way because bad movies are released all the time, intentionally or not. The only reason to put this one in a can and bury it is that it makes some really egregiously offensive statement, and do you bet that it's more offensive to the Woke or more offensive to old-line DC fans?
So, no superhot superhero girl-on-girl action with Catwoman? Whatever happened to Catwoman anyway?
Julie Newmarket was Catwoman
Yvonne Craig was Batgirl on the TV show
Dare to defy, take a knee, beg, suck, social progress raised the glass ceiling.
'Was it due to a "Showgirls" (1995) level of bad directing, bad plot, and bad acting, or some lame woke plot that no one liked?'
At least 'Showgirls' had lots of tits.
Redeeming.
Oh, like Magical Mystery Tour. I felt SO cheated!
But I guess it was finally released, and really did suck.
As Althouse blog readers know, my "Frankenstein, Part II" script is awesome and a lock for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Now all I need to do is get someone to buy it.
Deevs: "I watched Rocky and Patton on a series of flights a few months back. Could we get back to making those kinds of movies?"
Rocky and Patton *were* superhero movies, for older generations.
So I learned the term 'gingercide' today with respect to movies. Interesting view!
(Red-headed characters are replaced by black ones)
Always worth brushing up:
Wikipedia: Sunk Cost
If it's that bad, it's probably good in a campy way. Like Will Ferrell's "Land of the Lost". Horseshit movie...so bad it was good.
Now I want to see it.
"I hear the latest phase of Marvel content hasn't performed as well as the older stuff, so maybe that's also a sign of approaching superhero fatigue"
Superhero movies are just making explicit what all movies have done throughout moviemaking, which is make an interesting character with specific traits face some kind of challenging experience.
The problem with both DC and recent Marvel movies is they went toward being evangelical in promoting causes, making them the same artistic and entertainment quality as Kirk Cameron movies.
Well-written and entertaining movies that focus on telling a good story and have good writing and dialogue, appealing to the emotional desires of a broad group of people will do well. Taking the character and worlds of previously successful forms of that to turn into message or cause, or putting such into the hands of people who don't actually like the genre or the fans of the genre, tend to do poorly.
'The problem is Hollywood has been and continues to be undecided whether their goal is to make good movies (or at least profitable movies) or to virtue signal.'
What planet do you live on?
They've decided.
It's whatever the trans/LGBT, etc. lobby and the Chinese Communist Party want...
Should have cast a dude to play Batgirl. Maybe Robin going trans.
Otherwise, Yvonne Craig is the only Batgirl - with or without green skin.
I say talk about it.
a trans character that's in the comic books
In the comic books from back in the 1930s?
There's a similar political effect when somebody on the right calls the left e.g. the real racist, with the right adopting the left's professed standards.
Turn off the DVD and put it in the growing discard pile, along with every other movie produced in the last three years.
from ace..
By the way, there was yet another race-swap in the casting, and another Gingercide.
Barbara "Batgirl" Gordon, a white redhead in the comics, was made into a black (or half-black) girl.
If you haven't heard of "Gingercide," it refers to Hollywood's weird insistence on race-swapping every single ginger in the comics to a black actor or sometimes a Hispanic one. Disney does this too (The Little Mermaid).
do you WANT to live in a world, where beautiful gingers are replaced with so-so Blacks?
i, for one, do NOT. STOP THE GINGERCIDE!! SAVE OUR REDHEADS!!!
HoodlumDoodlum: The sunk cost idea is well appreciated. However, at this point they apparently have a completed, if absolutely awful movie. The normal action in this situation is to release the film, perhaps to no fanfare, and make some revenue back. Even awful movies can pull in a few million dollars, which is better than zero dollars, and sometimes truly horrible movies can get a cult following. Then again, perhaps the remaining expenses to get this released are more than they expect to get in return. Either that or the film is so damaging to the brand that it would wreck any profits from future D.C. films, and perhaps ruin the careers of everyone involved.
I do want to see this movie now. Terrible films can be so much fun, even when they are not.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) I remember as good. They had a racist with clever disparaging lines, and some redemption or other that wasn't trivial PC pap. I haven't rewatched it, though.
"This movie also had one of the first trans characters, based on a trans character that's in the comic books, played by a trans actor."
How nice for them!
@Christopher B: "Rumor, via Ace at AofSHQ who appears to spend a whale of a lot time keeping up with such stuff, is that this was supposedly the movie to replace The DC Trinity of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman with a new Woke Trinity of Supergirl, Batgirl, and Wonder Woman."
So....further evidence this era will be looked back upon as the juvenile, puerile, fictional version of the French "Reign of Terror." Kill all the old and evil cultural icons on the Guillotine only to kill the next batch and then the next batch, until you run out of things to destroy. The current era reveals what happens when a species that instinctively needs and creates religions in all cultures and historical times turns its gaze on nonreligious popular fiction...and makes it a religion...
The 1960s lefty anti-establishment people had an Judeo-Christian-European establishment to fight against. Today's postmodern wokesters are fighting themselves to find a moral structure. Any structure. Never mind that they are jumping into the abyss.
A girl bat may be a more viable entree in the modern sociopolitical sauce. Served with a nice Chianti, hold the fava beans.
The funny thing about the Batgirl comics is that the best performing run by some margin actually starred a character other than Barbara Gordon. The main character's name was Cassandra Cain and the only reason they axed the series was because they wanted to introduce a new Batwoman and were worried that there'd be confusion.
Apparently rather than just have either her or Barbara Gordon take that name they decided to do an updated version of original name Kate Kane.
I hope that all the actors got paid on the front end. If one of the leads had a contract where they got paid on the back end with a percentage of the box office receipts, well they now just ended up working for free.
Real women aren't brave in an action hero way and the women of wokiedom aren't brave at all. Isn't it counter-wokie-culture to even imagine a woman as an "action hero?" Haven't we been told that American women get "triggered" if they hear harsh, ugly words and and get shy and silent when contradicted? Someone says some mean words - don't we picture women running to their Title X coordinator or to HR. Aren't women constantly claiming they were "raped," although they never said "no," and in fact said yes, because (they realize later) they were afraid. Women won't say anything about men in women's sports. Women in politics won't keep men out of women's prisons. And now we're to think a women will go BIF, BAM, POW when facing five men. There are plenty of men who have been brave in an action hero way for the rest of us. And plenty of women who have been brave in some way for us. But real women with a story that's remotely like an action hero? Name one.
The official reason for the cancellation has something do with a write-off available only until mid-August that is a result of change of ownership at Warner Bros. I doubt Hollywood is interested in torpedoing woke content; it appears to be a money decision.
The Axe Of Zaslav slays again!
-credit to John Campea
I would think they'd have learned from the disastrous "Catwoman" movie with Halle Berry. The female characters in the Batman universe just aren't that interesting, not for an entire movie.
And what's the big deal about having an Hispanic actress or a trans character in the movie, the entire world of Batman is made up of unique or unusual characters, especially the villains, the Joker, the Penguin, Poison Ivy, Bane, the Mad Hatter, Mr. Freeze, the list goes on. I don't know how you do anything that's going to be received as all that extraordinary or ground-breaking. Ethnic actresses and trans characters, it's so pedestrian.
"As Althouse blog readers know, my 'Frankenstein, Part II' script is awesome and a lock for Best Adapted Screenplay."
Been done. A lot.
What Hollywood wants is my "Plan Nine from Frankenstein", the raging Creature descends from its alpine lair in search of the traumatized Victor Frankenstein. He wants to be a she, and only Baron Vick and his dwarfish assistant (casting note: Jerrold Nadler will be looking for work) can do the work.
"Could it be the beginning of the end of all this superheroism in movies?"
'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.
"If you haven't heard of "Gingercide," it refers to Hollywood's weird insistence on race-swapping every single ginger in the comics to a black actor or sometimes a Hispanic one. Disney does this too (The Little Mermaid)."
Didn't something pretty much like this just happen in the White House?
Zaslav seems to really that the dark tone of wb is niche, counterpart to marvel until three years ago
Could it be the beginning of the end of all this superheroism in movies? I wish, but I doubt it. Apparently only DC comics are in trouble.
You are probably right. DC is GM or IBM, and Marvel is Toyota or Apple. I grew up on DC and really liked the comics when I was younger. But Superman and Batman are old hat. They come from a pre-hip era. There have been plenty of attempts to update them, but they belong to an earlier era, the age of radio dramas, Roy Rogers, Buck Rogers. Marvel characters have more of a Sixties/Seventies sensibility. There's an ironic/neurotic edge to them that appeals to more recent audiences.
Also, some things didn't translate very well into film. My favorites, the Legion of Superheroes, a collection of teens from the future with superpowers, would be very hard to film. To me though it seems more "real" and "original" than all the X-Men, Umbrella Academy garbage.
If it's worse than Star Trek: Discovery - that's BAD.
female characters in the Batman universe just aren't that interesting, not for an entire movie
speak for yourself!
There's one, titled The Corrption of Batgirl, with Christina Carter as Batgirl, and Emily Addison as Catwoman; where Batgirl is tranformed into Catgirl. It is VERY Interesting.
Production Values could have been higher; it's True, but once Batgirl foolishly ingests the catnip, it becomes purrfect
Batman and robin bad, howard the duck
I would never sleep with a woman who takes comics and superheroes as worthy of consideration.
"...the disastrous "Catwoman" movie with Halle Berry. The female characters in the Batman universe just aren't that interesting, not for an entire movie."
Geez, if you can't make Halle Berry in a skimpy, tight leather sit interesting....
Honest trailers was brutal
I've been trying to watch The Batman since it came out, and I was one of the 30 grown women who actually liked Twilight... Even with Robert Pattinson in the suit, I can't get through it. DCverse is a terrible, dark, and ultimately boring place compared with Marvelverse... and Mrs. Marvel or Captain Marvel or whoever she was just about killed that off for me too. She was ok in herself, but the hype around the movie was SO dull. And the powers they gave her rendered everyone else obsolete, including Thor - which may be canon; I wasn't allowed comic books when they were age-appropriate for me, so I don't know. But omnipotence removes all drama.
I am perpetually 14, apparently, but not an utterly dumb 14.
narciso said...
..howard the duck
--
Implied bestiality and Playduck cenrterfold appropriating human pubic hair.
Ahead of its time.
Give that a year.
Never saw patch adams cavell is the steely jawed face of superman and they wanted to erase him as waller bridge threatens to do the name to indiana jones
The only people who want to see trannies on the screen are other trannies. So their built in audience is only some tiny fraction of one percent of the population.
Get woke go broke is a real thing, as Disney is finding out.
Has there ever really been a dearth of Latin actresses on the big screen? Sometimes like Rita Hayworth they anglicized their names, but there have been lots of Latina movie stars. What's fairly new is that they're giving non-knockout, plain Latina females leading roles. The Lena Dunham effect. Plain women and trans characters inhibit the male gaze which has wreaked such havoc in art and civilization......The first trans character was Plastic Man. Plastic Man is a comic book character who exists in the DC universe. Plastic Man, if you remember, could change his body into any shape he desired. In the comics, he would pretend to be a chair or a car or some unexpected inanimate object. But that was only when he was on the hunt for criminals. In his private life, he probably transformed into a naked Rita Hayworth and stood transfixed in front of the mirror. That's what I would do with such an awesome super power, but the comic books never got into the quirks of his character. Anyway, he was definitely trans and polytrans at that.
The reason it was cancelled is that it was attempting a major continuity change and was going to retcon Superman and Batman (or at least Batfleck) out of existence. Replacing them with Batgirl and Supergirl. Keaton was going to be kept as a sort of Mr. Miyagi.
In other words it was woke drivel of the worst sort and someone at DC realized that killing off Superman and Batman in the forms they have existed in for 80 plus years was not only box office poison, but something that might kill the entire franchise.
Actual comic fans don’t care about trans, gay or minority Marxist crap. Keaton was coming back as the retired Batman. Gee, so much fun to see your hero as a doddering old man who is “mentor” to a sassy trannie latina. Not. Comics as a money making enterprise are mainly the domain of men. Men do not want to see trannies pretending to be women. Men don’t care about ethnicity. They care about big boobs. Making comic movies for women or LGBT is a losing proposition because they don’t really care about that stuff. They enjoyed infiltrating it, taking it over and making it total garbage as they did to science fiction and fantasy. They don’t actually care about it. Look at what they did to the Hugos.
To DRP's comment, I think they could have finessed it if they wanted to, maybe by creating a multi-verse where this grouping is the 'Justice League' version while continuing solo outings from Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman though it appears there are issues getting some of the more popular actors to continue on in their roles. You would have sort of needed to ignore the Batman v Superman by retconning that meeting into the future. The significant problem from the Wokies point of view is they know it would be obvious within one or two movies that the all-girl JL would be decidedly second-fiddle to the blockbuster solo outings by the white men.
Destroying 80 years of white male patriarchy is a feature to them, not a bug.
My understanding is that it isn’t the worst movie but it us potentially damaging to the DC brand. According to the YouTube channel Nerdrotic there is a rumor going around that the heads of Warner have decided to burn the prints so to speak. This may be the biggest entertainment f-up since Atari buried copies of the ET game in the desert 🌵.
I'm a redhead, and I demand to know why they didn't cast a natural redhead into a redhead role? And by dying her hair red, she's appropriating my redhead culture! Redheads have been bullied and marginalized for centuries and now majority brunettes are taking our roles! I demand reparations!
Hm. I’m starting to think this pulling of the movie is because it offends rather than uplifts the trans crowd.
Remember, “Idiocracy” was virtually pulled and it went on to become, well, the present.
"Could it be the beginning of the end of all this superheroism in movies? "
Not movies. Cartoons.
FIFY
Apparently the producers came to the realization that "Batichica Transgénero" wouldn't play in Peoria.
One obvious problem: you can imagine a dark, brooding, physically imposing, dangerous (always feels barely contained) guy (batman), but a girl? You just get emo. Not physically imposing nor dangerous. The basic problem with all female superheroes. Black widow? Fairly convincing if you don't think about how hard she just got hit. Captain Marvel? eh. Too easy, too powerful, no weaknesses. Superheroes have to have a weakness. Kryptonite. Self-absorption (Tony Stark). Naive and limited powers (Captain america). Teen ignorance (spiderman).
I heard that a stage production of Shakepeare's Richard play cast a black woman as king richard. Which makes mince meat of the entire story. No hunchback either (which was real).
Kate said...
The official reason for the cancellation has something do with a write-off available only until mid-August that is a result of change of ownership at Warner Bros. I doubt Hollywood is interested in torpedoing woke content; it appears to be a money decision.
Anything is possible but discovering a tax loophole that makes it better to get $0 revenue on upwards of $100 million dollars spent seems a stretch. I can see a loophole that might make the situation less painful closing soon and leading to them canceling it now if they feel it's going to lose money but I doubt the studio would cancel it just for the tax implications. And all the recent evidence suggests that would go double for really Woke content which seems to get released with greatly inflated expectations of how well it will play. The reasonable assumption is something has persuaded the studio that the film itself is a money-loser and the only way to get anything back is the tax write-off, the most reasonable assumption of the film being a money loser is the content is so bad that not even die-hard fans will see it, and all the evidence there points to woke content turning off the comics audience as has happened to other movies recently.
Also figuring prominently in Ace's report were personnel moves made by the new head of Warner Discover that point to him not being one to suffer woke fools gladly.
Women heroes: there were female spies in WWII who were heroic. Female snipers in Russia same war. There have been women who killed their rapist or assassin. But otherwise, let us remember the 3 female cops in Sweden who were unable to arrest a male drunk, until a male cop came and arrested him. We suspend disbelief in movies all the time, but there is a limit.
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