Although Batgirl is looking as though it may be locked in a vault for all time, we have gotten to see bits and pieces thanks to photos and videos from the set. Leslie Grace’s stunt-double Emely Cartagena posted a video on Instagram showing the progression of an impressive stunt sequence featuring Batgirl crashing a Gotham City party and taking down a Christmas tree in the process.
The Batgirl set video ends with a look at the actual filmed scene (through a monitor), giving us a tease of what could have been. These bits and pieces may be all we’ll ever see of Batgirl. Even the film’s directors, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, weren’t able to keep any of the footage for themselves. The pair tried to save some footage when they learned of the movie’s fate, but the studio had already blocked it from their server. “Adil called and told me, ‘Go ahead! Shoot everything on your phone!’” Fallah explained. “I went on the server… Everything was gone. We were [like]… ‘F**ing shit!’… We did not [even] keep [the scenes] with Batman in it.“
Batgirl starred Leslie Grace as Barbara Gordon, alongside J.K. Simmons as Commissioner James Gordon, Brendan Fraser as Ted Carson/Firefly, Jacob Scipio as Anthony Bressi, Ivory Aquino as Alysia Yeoh, and Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman. Several members of the Batgirl cast have commented on its cancellation, including Brendan Fraser. “It’s disappointing,” Fraser recently said. “The fans really wanted to see this film made. Leslie Grace is a dynamo. The movie was shot and conceived for a smaller screen. In this age that we’ve come out of now between streaming service versus theatrical release, it wound up being the canary in the coal mine.” The film was developed for HBO Max, but there was talk of it getting a theatrical release before the studio decided to shove it in a vault. As it stands now, the only screening the movie has received beyond test screenings was a final “funeral” viewing for the cast and crew.