In a different world, the Batgirl movie would have been released following The Flash, but as we know, Warner Bros. put Barbara Gordon on the shelf, never to be seen again. For directors Adil El Abri and Bilall Fallah, watching The Flash was a bittersweet experience.
“We watched it and we were sad,” Adil El Abri told Insider. “We love director Andy Muschietti and his sister Barbara, who produced the movie. But when we watched it, we felt we could have been part of the whole thing.” He continued, “We didn’t get the chance to show ‘Batgirl’ to the world and let the audience judge for themselves. Because the audience really is our ultimate boss and should be the deciders of if something is good or bad, or if something should be seen or not.“
Adil added that Batgirl was “very different from The Flash. That has a big fantasy component, ours was more grounded. More like Tim Burton’s Gotham City.” Bilall Fallah said that not getting to feature their take on Michael Keaton’s Batman was “the biggest disappointment of our careers. As a fanboy, just to be in the presence of Keaton as Batman, that’s just a privilege and an honor. But it’s a bittersweet feeling.” Despite their experience with Batgirl, the directors would still like to return to the DC Universe one day. “There’s still a feeling of unfinished business,” Bilall said.
When James Gunn and Peter Safran took over DC Studios, some fans hoped that they would be able to get the movie released, but Safran has said that he agreed with David Zaslav’s decision. “I saw the movie, and there are a lot of incredibly talented people in front of and behind the camera on that film. But that film was not releasable, and it happens sometimes,” Safran said. “That film was not releasable. I actually think that [president and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery David] Zaslav and the team made a very bold and courageous decision to cancel it because it would have hurt DC. It would have hurt those people involved.” Leslie Grace, who starred in Batgirl, was quick to reject that claim.