One of the hottest tickets in Hollywood right now is to a movie most people will likely never get to see: Batgirl.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the suddenly shelved movie is becoming the subject of what some dubbed “funeral screenings” for the movie’s cast and “select industry insiders.”
The intimate events this week at the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, California, will allow those who worked on the project to say goodbye before the shelved film is either locked away in a vault or destroyed.
As reported, Warner Bros. Discovery made the nearly unprecedented decision to scrap the movie, in what will be posed as a $90 million or so “write-down” to the company, following WB’s acquisition by Discovery. The move took the film’s cast — including Batgirl herself Leslie Grace; Michael Keaton, who reprised as Batman/Bruce Wayne; and Brendan Fraser, who played the heavy — as well as its directors, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, by surprise.
Interestingly, the trade notes that WB could choose to keep the movie on ice permanently, which would entitle the studio to a portion of the write-down from the IRS now, with the rest coming in installments.
More unlikely, THR reports, the studio could outright destroy the film to prove it won’t ever be able to profit from it, in an effort to collect its full tax liability from it.
If Warner Bros. Discovery decided to somehow salvage the movie and release it, the trade notes, it would owe the IRS whatever monies it recouped from the write-down.
THR also notes that another shelved project, Scoob! Holiday Haunt, had its “funeral screenings” on the WB lot last week.
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