Since other posters are asserting that I was wrong, here are the specific articles to which I have been referring, along with excerpts. Variety: https://variety.com/2022/film/news/batgirl-movie-why-not-releasing-warner-bros-1235332062/ Deadline Hollywood: https://deadline.com/2022/08/batgir...slav-jason-kilar-hbo-max-strategy-1235084032/ The Hollywood Reporter: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/batgirl-hbo-max-movie-dc-canceled-1235191932/
The Variety article linked by wayoung above invokes Batgirl's test screening results as key to its cancellation: On another subject: From my highly informed and industry-savvy armchair quarterback perspective, I feel like the best bet for The Flash would be to get it into theaters ASAP, before the situation with Miller spirals any further out of control. As much as Miller's unhinged and increasingly criminal antics are the subject of much discussion and speculation among industry and Internet commentators, I think at this point they would damage the film's box office not at all. Guaranteed, you ask 500 random people on the street about what's going on with Miller, you'd be lucky to find one who's aware of it at all. But the chances of that changing for the worse increase every day. So why not rush the movie into theaters before any more damage can be done?
According to Deadline, the film's release was pushed back to June 2023 because of the time required to complete the estimated 2500 visual effects shots in the film. Hollywood's VFX artists are already criminally overworked and struggling to keep up. Even if they could rush the FX work enough to get it out 6-9 months earlier, the results would be far worse-looking than Superman's erased mustache.
Not me. My interest in the film is 95 percent about Sasha Calle's Supergirl anyway, and she doesn't deserve to be punished for Miller's slow-motion disaster train. The Flash may well be my first theatrical movie attendance since COVID hit, and I'll buy the Blu-ray on release day, too.
Honestly I've probably gotten more entertainment from this thread the last week than from any DCEU movie.
I hate to say it, but... if I was a betting man, right now I'd put it at 70% and rising that Ezra Miller will be dead by the release date, if not by the end of this year. And we already know from prior films, acting-wise Heath Ledger and/or Brandon Lee they are not. So no, I don't see too many at all going to see it for them. (I sure won't be.) Maybe a few, in a morbid 'Elvis in Concert '77' kind of way, but not nearly in the numbers this film would need to break even.
Getting rid of productions (and TV/streaming series, etc.) not relevant to the big screen stories/plans is understandable, but The Batman plans would not fall into that category, and at present, could be sold as the alternate universe tale it it. Agreed. They are focused--as they should be--on amputating the misguided ideas of the former regime, and but that would not include a currently self-contained juggernaut such as the Joker. [/I] While Miller's fate is difficult to determine at this point (not referring to the likelihood for death), to anyone who even knows Miller's name, or pays attention to entertainment gossip, the level of their morbid curiosity is up in the air. In the Brandon Lee case, the wild publicity surrounding an on-set mortal wound, coupled with the news media's ridiculous "Bruce Lee curse" stories (Brandon dying before the release of a film as in the case of Bruce before Enter the Dragon's release) made The Crow a draw it would not have been if Brandon Lee lived on. Miller is a warped, criminal mess, but to John & Jane Q. Public, i'm not certain Miller or the fact he's in a superhero film would have the same, morbid pull, and there's no pop-cultural tie-in to a tragedy as in the Brandon Lee case in relation to his very famous father.
Black Canary is a DC super hero. She was portrayed by that actress in the Harley Quinn/Birds of Prey movie. She is now spinning off into a solo film that has apparently thus far avoided the Discovery bloodbath. Didn't Doom Patrol season 3 already finish?
I was curious how many people would refuse to see the movie just because Ezra Miller is in it. This seems to suggest the opposite where it may actually be some kind of draw.
I wouldn't hold one actor's behavior against a film they appeared in. I mean, if we rejected works of fiction because of the misdeeds of their creators, we'd have to throw out everything featuring Barry Allen, and indeed pretty much everything from the Silver Age of DC onwards, because editor Julius Schwartz was a serial sexual predator who made life hell for the women working for him and actively stymied multiple other women's attempts to establish careers as comic book writers and artists. The Flash is far more Julius Schwartz's creation than Ezra Miller's, so if we can divorce it from Schwartz's decades of abuses and still enjoy it as a positive creation, it should be far easier to do that with Miller, because Miller is just someone the filmmakers hired to act out the script someone else wrote and follow the instructions of a director. We don't judge children for the sins of their parents, so it doesn't make sense to judge a creative work for the sins of its creators. Unless the creation actively endorses or promotes those sins, e.g. D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation promoting the Ku Klux Klan and the white supremacist Lost Cause narrative, then it's independent of those sins and can be judged separately. Sometimes even a work that does endorse evil ideas can be enjoyed for its other aspects, like the way H.P. Lovecraft's really racist fiction nonetheless has a fair number of fans among the diverse communities Lovecraft vilified -- fans who fully recognize their harmful aspects but can still look past them to appreciate Lovecraft's positive creations and innovations, and who have written or produced works of fiction that drew on Lovecraft's mythos while deconstructing or countering its harmful elements.
It’s like some kind of morality tale, whereby fans were given SFX & technology fit to bring superheroes to life, a bunch of well-cast actors, a diverse group of writers and a studio that couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery
I just realized that Michael Keaton came back to play Batman after almost 30 years in two separate movies, and we may never see a second of his footage from either of them. As someone who considers Keaton the only good (serious) Live action Batman (Adam West was good, but as an obviously more funny/campy version), being hyped to see him return and then never getting to see it might be the most infuriating thing DC has done, to me at least. It would be one thing if we didn't know he was returning, but knowing it was happening and then being denied it is horrible. For that reason alone I want The Flash to come out. Ezra's already been paid for his work, and he's nuts but not to the point where I really care that he'll get residuals or various bonuses. The works done, the reshoots are apparently done, just release the damn film, using the other actors to market it and down play Ezra Miller. The idea that I will have to see the Affleck Batman again, even if just for a cameo in Aquaman 2, but might never see Keaton in the role again really fucking sucks.
Oh, I meant the average person would not necessarily care about Miller, pay attention to coverage of his various disasters, or want to see a film just to watch him. Even if he ended up in prison before the film's release, I believe there's a part of the movie-going public that would not see The Flash specifically for that reason, as its not enough of a motivator (especially if "Hollywood gossip" is not to their liking) to see yet another superhero film.
From The Onion... https://www.theonion.com/we-have-no...tm_medium=socialmarketing&utm_source=facebook
I won't be watching. Not just because of Miller, but also I would have been forced to watch a 70-something Michael Keaton play Batman after 30 years. Forget it.