Four years after Warner Bros. decided against releasing Batgirl, star J.K. Simmons still has no idea why.
“It’s bizarre. Apparently, one test audience saw it, and, you know, it wasn’t like it was like a bad score from the test audience,” Simmons said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “It was, yeah, it was a whatever business decision obviously, and and then yeah, Justice League, which was a very small part, had its own drama attached to it. But then Zack’s cut… the director’s cut came out, which the DC fans, you know, really love.”
Simmons played Commissioner Gordon in Joss Whedon’s ill-fated Justice League, which hit theaters in 2017 and was released to largely negative reviews. He appeared in the famous Snyder Cut of the film, which prompted more fans to revisit his performance and praise it as underrated. He would then play Commissioner Gordon again in Batgirl, which starred Leslie Grace as his daughter Barbara Gordon aka the titular vigilante. Filmmaker duo El Arbi and Bilall Fallah directed from a screenplay by Christina Hodson.
However, the movie, which was slated for an eventual HBO Max release, was suddenly shelved in 2022. At the time, Warner Bros. claimed it was for cost-cutting reasons and a re-focus on theatrical releases. Later that year, James Gunn and Peter Safran became co-CEOs of the newly formed DC Studios, which ended the DCEU and started the DCU. When asked about the film, Safran said that the film was “not releasable,” but did not give a reason why.
“When Batgirl came along with Adil [El Arbi] and Bilall [Fallah] and, you know, it was an exciting prospect to be part of the origin story of Batgirl,” Simmons continued. “For those who don’t know, Commissioner Gordon’s daughter. Maybe we’ll never know… We really had a good time making it and, you know, thought it was going to be a fun superhero movie. Oh well.”
Zack Snyder‘s Justice League is streaming now on HBO Max. For more, check out our list of all the upcoming DC movies and shows.