Oh, I thought it's budget was a lot lower than that. Yeah, if that was the best they could do with 90 million that's.... not good. But even if that is the case, refusing to release it is still a shitty move on WB's part, there have been a lot worse things released over the years, and it still would be nice to see it, so we can judge for ourselves.
1963's Cleopatra was what nearly killed the studio. And it wasn't that Cleopatra was a bomb, as there were lines around the block to see it. The problem was they just spent too much money on making it, and it was way too long, meaning that they couldn't get as many showings in a day as other films. What saved the studio was its TV arm at the time, and the film The Longest Day; which saw a good return on investment and was popular with audiences.
Not saying it's not possible. Just saying I don't think it will happen. If i'm wrong...whoop-de-do. My life continues on, surprisingly unchanged.
No CW pilot ever cost anywhere near $90 million dollars, but if the details from the Gonzales interview are legitimate, it casts a very dark cloud over a big budget film to have taken on the appearance and execution of a DC/CW pilot. No, it is not good, and WB would risk losing more once marketing costs were added in on a movie described with It's not really a strong film. Releasing a film so you (or any audience member) can judge for yourself--particularly on a film that appears to have been a disappointment in the making--is not part of any realistic business model. If the studio has no confidence in the project, there it will usually end. Agreed. WB isn't a moment away from falling into the abyss, and its certainly never rested exclusively on its DC properties. So I take it you do not share the oft-repeated view from various media sources that the decade of the 1960s was a near disaster for the studio? I ask because the various sources routinely cite Doctor Dolittle (1967) as another major flop for the studio, with a $17 million dollar budget with only $9 million in worldwide earnings, and despite some TV series helping (and the eventual success of 1968's Planet of the Apes), they ended the decade with two gargantuan, musical disasters--1968's Star! ($14.33 million dollar budget, $10 million worldwide earnings) and 1969's Hello, Dolly!, initially earning only $400,881 against its $25 million budget, but theatrical ultimately topping off with $26 million, adding to its financial troubles in that decade.
Not at all. I really don't follow studio history that much. I'm just repeating what I remember hearing/seeing in a documentary about the making of Cleopatra, and how that film also nearly bankrupted the studio; and it had plenty of comments from Studio heads of the time saying that Cleopatra nearly bankrupted Fox, and the Fox television arm, and the film The Longest Day, made for much less money and about the same time as Cleopatra (1962) in their opinion saved the studio. If they had another situation like that 4 to 5 years later, then again it just shows that as others have posted above, it's somewhat common for a studio to be one major/ expensive film that doesn't do well with the box office away from bankruptcy. You really like to put a lot of words in other people's mouths don't you?
Incorrect. You added: ...but that was followed by massive flops, so Fox was not completely pulled out of the hole. In fact, Mort Abrahams--the associate producer / co-writer of Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) has claimed Fox's financial problems / major flops at the end of the decade was one of the reasons Beneath's budget was far less than that of the original, despite the '68 film's success.
I read somewhere that that was the reason Lost in Space ended without any notice to the cast. There were renewed for a fourth season but Fox cut the budgets to all there TV show to offset the loss From Cleopatra. Irwin Allen said he would not do Lost In Space for less so that was that.
Yes I did say The Longest Day and their TV arm did save them from the financial ruin that was caused by Cleopatra. Again that was in 1962/63. I didn't say a word about the later situation because I didn't know it; but that doesn't make what I said about the 1962/63 situation inaccurate, as the Studio Execs that commented on the situation said as much. You're the one who intimated that from that I must not believe that the actions of Fox later in the decade didn't cause another looming bankruptcy situation, but I intimated said nothing of the sort.
I would find that surprising since as I stated above the Cleopatra/The Longest Day situation occurred in 1963; 2 years before the first season of Lost in Space hit the airwaves. That said if Trek God1 is correct, that still could have happened, but it would be related to the situation with the films he mentioned that Fox produced and released later in the decade.
Neither is shelving a movie when principal photography is completed. An extreme rarity in the industry. In fact, putting money back in and reshooting a movie (Solo, Enemy Mine, Back to the Future, etc) so that the movie will still be released seems to be more common. What happened with Batwoman at the stage it was at is not following any average for the industry business model, by any means. Movies are shelved long before this stage in the cycle.
I've read similar accounts quoting Guy Williams and June Lockhart--both believed they would be returning for what would have been the 1968-69 TV season. For Fox series to have been dealt a budget cut by 1968--several years after the Cleopatra disaster, means they were not really saved by the performance of one film or the TV division; 1967's Doctor Dolittle's failure only added to the financial problems, and with two big budget musical flops to come in '68 & '69, Fox was in trouble, which supports Mort Abrahams' recollection about financial problems being one of the reasons Beneath the Planet of the Apes' budget (a film in production in 1969) was reduced.
Well, there were reshoots with Aquaman 2 (not limited to, but including Affleck's part), and Black Adam. Aquaman was a proven success, so they would do whatever was necessary with the sequel, while they're expecting (or hoping) Dwayne Johnson as Black Adam will be huge. Batgirl would be the largely untested property; yes, it had Keaton as Batman among the cast, but as a guess, that line from the Gonzales interview--"It's not really a strong film"--may have played a role in dooming it, since it--again--was largely an untested property, and if one of the DC movies had to go, it was Batgirl. Then again, I'd have to call the "untested" part of the theory into question since the Jamie Reyes Blue Beetle--while popular to comic book readers--is not so well known to the mainstream audience, yet that movie is supposedly still going forward.
So we've now come a consensus that the quality of Batgirl DID have a role in the cancelation, despite earlier protestations from certain posters? Even the Hollywood media is basically saying this.
There is a consensus of people who have never liked this movie in the first place to believe it's a piece of shit and deserves to be shelved.
It's just the attitude I've seen. I guess it depends where you look, @TREK_GOD_1 has seen where people are claiming it to be a masterpiece. I see a lot of people determined to write it off as subpar garbage. YMMV Personally, it always seemed middling to me but I'm pretty open minded to checking for myself when I can.