Netflix shelves projects all the time. It's the nature of made for streaming content. There's more of it, but it's also a lot more disposable.
It's basically something in between an actual movie and a pilot episode for a TV show.
It also sounds like it part of a bigger decision from the top up and could be related to the merger. HBO Max was pushing their superhero content, but now the parent company has decided that they want to save that all for theatrical films.
They're also probably looking at the luke warm response the Disney+ superhero shows are getting and going in a different direction.
Shelving projects, sure, scrapping completed projects with budgets over $100,000,000.00? I highly doubt that happens pretty much ever but maybe I’m wrong.
This feels more like The Producer’s Spring Time for Hitler type Hollywood accounting lol.
Could also see it as a “marketing campaign” after the Snyder cut and stuff. Sit on it for awhile before people want to see Keaton as Batman again (maybe after The Flash) and then release it somewhere/somehow. Because again it’s not really being scrapped, it’s pretty much done.
LOL for a "tax writedown". There is no world where a dollar of revenue is worse than zero dollars of revenue once you've already spent the money. This thing was so bad they didn't want to spend another dollar since releasing it would damage their brand, such as it is.
Last edited by Strange Brew; 08-04-2022 at 07:16 AM.
Lady Gaga confirms she's in Joker 2 I'm guessing playing Harley Quinn, and now we also have a release date Oct 4, 2024. This going to be great, let's hope WB stays far away from this project
So everyone ####s on WB for making bad DC movies, then ####s on them when they decide to cancel a bad one instead of releasing it. Can’t win! (Well, they could make good movies, but that’s a different story)
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Shelving projects, sure, scrapping completed projects with budgets over $100,000,000.00? I highly doubt that happens pretty much ever but maybe I’m wrong.
This feels more like The Producer’s Spring Time for Hitler type Hollywood accounting lol.
This is a unique situation, where due to the merger/sale there is a specific loophole that allows them to write off the entire project.
Then Batgirl was meant to be a medium budget made for streaming film ($50ish million) that's budget then ballooned into a $70-90 million project (depending on what source you read). That's also budget, which is different from dollars spent. A lot of sources seem to be confusing the two and it's unclear if they actually spent $70-90 million on the project or that's what the final film was budgeted for.
It sounds to me like the budget was $90 million, and the actual money spent was less. The loophole allows them to write off the entire budget, before the money is spent. So they went ahead and did it.
We've also got a new management group coming in that wants to put their stamp on things and make sure everything gets pushed in the write direction. Not too dissimilar to when the MCU took over the existing Marvel TV series and cancelled the entire lineup.
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Also, to add to the speculation. This could also be due to Affleck coming back as Batman. It sounds like they are re-shooting the Flash, to get rid of Keaton (or diminish his role) and replace it with Bat-Fleck. This could mean they axed Batgirl to get rid of Keaton's character. A shame....as Keaton Batman would have been awesome to see. However, I can see how it would have made things very complicated with Affleck coming back.
Also, to add to the speculation. This could also be due to Affleck coming back as Batman. It sounds like they are re-shooting the Flash, to get rid of Keaton (or diminish his role) and replace it with Bat-Fleck. This could mean they axed Batgirl to get rid of Keaton's character. A shame....as Keaton Batman would have been awesome to see. However, I can see how it would have made things very complicated with Affleck coming back.
The Flash is going to be a clusterfata for the ages.
How long have they been working on that movie? Shoots and re-shoots?
Keaton/Affleck and Ezra Miller genuinely losing his mind.
I cant even imagine what its all done to the budget.
Its going to be wild.
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This is a unique situation, where due to the merger/sale there is a specific loophole that allows them to write off the entire project.
Then Batgirl was meant to be a medium budget made for streaming film ($50ish million) that's budget then ballooned into a $70-90 million project (depending on what source you read). That's also budget, which is different from dollars spent. A lot of sources seem to be confusing the two and it's unclear if they actually spent $70-90 million on the project or that's what the final film was budgeted for.
It sounds to me like the budget was $90 million, and the actual money spent was less. The loophole allows them to write off the entire budget, before the money is spent. So they went ahead and did it.
We've also got a new management group coming in that wants to put their stamp on things and make sure everything gets pushed in the write direction. Not too dissimilar to when the MCU took over the existing Marvel TV series and cancelled the entire lineup.
Ah, so this is both something that happens all the time and an extremely unique situation.
Budget in film refers to money spent not a budget in traditional sense. I mean, it is used both ways but when it is all said and done the final budget of the movie was the money spent on production. Otherwise we would see every crappy movie ever made with a "budget" of $500M scrapped for tax purposes. And these budgets typically do not include advertising and promotion.
I cannot think of a high profile/high budget movie that has been pulled like this. Jerry Lewis' clown movie, cannot remember the title though. Brave from Depp but it was released in Europe just not North America. An old Pryor film and most recently Louis CK had a movie pulled just after his allegations became public. But I would really call these high profile especially at the time of supposed release.
To me, this screams brand damaging bad and they just cut their loses before any more expenses were incurred. Or maybe the new boss is just looney and needs to flex a little. Very odd no matter how you look at it.
This is a unique situation, where due to the merger/sale there is a specific loophole that allows them to write off the entire project.
Then Batgirl was meant to be a medium budget made for streaming film ($50ish million) that's budget then ballooned into a $70-90 million project (depending on what source you read). That's also budget, which is different from dollars spent. A lot of sources seem to be confusing the two and it's unclear if they actually spent $70-90 million on the project or that's what the final film was budgeted for.
It sounds to me like the budget was $90 million, and the actual money spent was less. The loophole allows them to write off the entire budget, before the money is spent. So they went ahead and did it.
We've also got a new management group coming in that wants to put their stamp on things and make sure everything gets pushed in the write direction. Not too dissimilar to when the MCU took over the existing Marvel TV series and cancelled the entire lineup.
A loophole that allows you to take a tax deduction for budgeted spending? What is this loophole?
The articles also cite there is also some major accounting advantage in getting the loss off the books, and written off, prior to going into the merger (I don't really get this, as my accounting knowledge is lacking):
The merged company has a limited time to identify and itemize these specific merger-related costs that fall under the set-aside. Anything that goes into this corporate “burn bag” gets taken as a write off or sunk cost. Anything that doesn’t becomes part of operating profit and loss going forward.
This window provides a “get out of jail free” card for the company to get any project that carries any risk of not being profitable off the books, at a unique moment when its termination becomes just another cost of the merger rather than a specific operational failure. Is the project not a sure money-maker? Or are there even slight concerns about the quality of the finished product? Pull the plug.
This article also blames accountants for having the movie cancelled....get him Nadal Fan!
The articles also cite there is also some major accounting advantage in getting the loss off the books, and written off, prior to going into the merger (I don't really get this, as my accounting knowledge is lacking):
This article also blames accountants for having the movie cancelled....get him Nadal Fan!
Interesting, thanks for that.
So basically as part of the merger they were able to dump a depreciating asset and get it off of the books. Still doesn't speak highly of the movie. I wonder what happens to the movie's rights. This would make me think they would be up for grabs. Movie rights can be weird. Take Kevin's Smith's Dogma. If I understand things properly nobody actually owns the rights but nobody can actually claim them either. Some how it got lost in the shuffle in the Weinstein fiasco.
