After Batgirl, this promising project from James Gunn officially canceled by Warner
Clearly, Warner does a bit of anything with its productions. After the cancellation of Batgirl and the destruction of the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), it is the turn of this ambitious project initiated by James Gunn to end up in oblivion. The story of Batgirl repeating itself…
Batgirl : a sad story
In 2018, Belgian directors Adil El Arbi And Bilall Fallah attract all eyes to them with Gangsta, a popular entertainment that is ultra well paced and extremely in tune with the times. The duo even attracted the attention of Hollywood studios. In 2020, Sony entrusted them with the production of Bad Boys: For Life. In 2022, Marvel Studios offers them the production of the series Miss Marvel. Finally, the same year, Warner gave the Belgian duo the production of Batgirl. Unfortunately for them, things are not going to go well…
While the filming of Batgirl is finished, and the film has almost concluded its post-production, Warner makes an unprecedented decision. The company decided to simply cancel the film! No theatrical release, no release on any platform, no one will ever see the film, much to the chagrin of Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. However, the film had promising elements, notably a four-star cast including Leslie Grace (Batgirl), Michael Keaton (Batman), Brendan Fraser (Firefly) and JK Simmons (Jim Gordon). No doubt because of the sorry state of the DCEU and the arrival of James Gunn and Peter Safran at the head of DC Films, Warner preferred to cancel Batgirl. Even Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah couldn’t see their own film…
The story repeats itself
And since bad news never comes alone, Warner has just repeated the experience. In fact, the American studio has just canceled Coyote vs Acme, another of his officially completed projects. Written by James Gunndirected by Dave Green, Coyote vs Acme had finished production, and was simply looking for a distributor. As Space Jam, Who wants Roger Rabbit’s skin? or Looney Tunes takes action, Coyote vs Acme mixed live action and animated format. The story told how Coyote sued the company Acme which supplied him with defective equipment, which prevents him from catching Bip Bip.
Warner refused a theatrical release and was looking for a host to broadcast Coyote vs. Acme. Warner Bros offered $75 to $80 million to have the film distributed by another studio. A sum which would have completely reimbursed the cost of production. Several platforms like Netflix, Amazon and Paramount were potentially interested in the film. Warner ultimately rejected the offers from the various studios and simply preferred to cancel the film…
Netflix was interested but wanted to buy the film from half its price. Which led to the withdrawal of the platform in this bidding war. Sony and Apple had also shared their interest before also withdrawing. Finally, Paramount and Amazon made offers which did not convince Warner.
According to some reports, Warner prefers to cancel the film because it will get a tax deduction of $30 million. And after The Wrap, David Zaslav, CEO of Warner would not even have bothered to watch the film, which, we remind you, is well finished…
In addition, to add a little more frustration to this bad news, the film received excellent feedback from its test screenings. It was shown several months ago to a limited audience and received 95% very positive reviews. However, despite this positive feedback, the presence of John Cena to the casting, and the omnipresence of the hashtag #SaveCoyoteVsAcme the project was therefore canceled by Warner…