Canceling Batgirl

I have long since stopped paying much attention to what is said about movies that has not been long since completed and so close to a proper, firm, reasonably unmovable release date as to be virtually immovable--in part because since the outbreak of the pandemic things have gone according to plan that much less often, making early claims about them (a good many of which are stupidities and outright lies anyway) much less meaningful.

Still, the news about Batgirl caught me by surprise. This film, which has a budget I have seen reported as variously in the $70 million to $100 million range was actually in post-production when Warner Brothers Discovery (the parent company of the backer, Warner Brothers) decided it was not going to come out. At all. Even on streaming.

Why has this been the case? Apparently the film, which cost as much as it did because of pandemic-related disruption and delay, is, according to the logic now prevailing with a recently changed company management at WBD, "neither big enough to feel worthy of a major theatrical release nor small enough to make economic sense in an increasingly cutthroat streaming landscape." Basically, the company is walking back from the idea of Warner Brothers making expensive content for streaming, instead reemphasizing theatrical release--where this relatively modest production (next to the "tentpoles" that cost several times as much to make) is a weak prospect, such that the additional cost of finishing post-production, marketing, distributing it (easily equaling or exceeding what has already been expended), would likely mean a much worse bottom line than if it had simply cut its losses and taken the tax write-off.

All of this seems to me plausible enough. As we have seen since the pandemic streaming, in any form (e.g. $30 surcharges), is no substitute for theatrical revenues--while the streaming market is indeed saturated. (Remember how Netflix has been taking that beating?) Meanwhile that theatrical release market has been ever more dominated by the really big blockbusters, meaning a comparatively "small" superhero film, in another saturated market, would have a tough time scoring back even that "small" budget. After all, if what is said about the numbers so far is accurate the movie, which may run the studio $200 million when marketing and distribution costs are all counted in, might need to make as much as a half billion to break even on its theatrical run--which would be a long shot even in good times, which these are not. The American box office remains well short of its normal dynamism, and the global box office too (with the Chinese government less likely than before to let Hollywood into its colossal and increasingly critical market).

And just as the prospects are poorer, so is the studio's capacity to take the hit in light of the financial beating that Warner Brothers, like every other studio these days (I dare say, like just about every other company these days), has been taking for over two years as a result of the neverending troubles of the not-so-roaring 2020s (reflected in $3 billion in debt across its divisions, while interest rates head up in a way unseen in decades). Taken altogether this would seem to rather predictably compel a more than usually ruthless attitude on the part of management, perhaps especially in relation to a DC universe that may still look like their best bet for real profitability over the short, medium and even long-term.

So the decision seems to have run: show that the company's new management is serious about its announced strategy, take the tax write-off, and avoid adding yet another black mark to the WB's track record with DC.

Still, if I entirely get the business logic it still seems to me mind-boggling that a near-$100 million movie will get buried like this--the fact that between the commercial logic of the blockbuster, the pandemic and the other factors discussed here the business has come to this pass bespeaking a depressing decadence about the way movies get financed and made these days. The one movie discussed here may or may not represent any great loss to world cinema, but the fact that this is how the game is being played can only make things harder on those trying to actually make movies--and they were more than crushingly, heart-breakingly hard already.