Leslie Grace Defends Batgirl, Version She Saw Was ‘Incredible’

Warner Bros. Discovery’s decision to cancel the finished Batgirl film is still one that has a ton of controversy around it. According to star Leslie Grace, she isn’t agreeing with any rumors of the film being described as bad.

Speaking to Variety, Grace was asked whether or not the actress ever got to see the final cut of the film. Grace said she didn’t because the film hadn’t been fully completed by the time it was canceled. What she had seen, however, was “incredible.”

“That’s the one thing I asked for,” said Grace. “I got to see the film as far as it got to; the film wasn’t complete by the time that it was tested. There were a bunch of scenes that weren’t even in there. They were at the beginning of the editing process, and they were cut off because of everything going on at the company. But the film that I got to see — the scenes that were there — was incredible. There was definitely potential for a good film, in my opinion. Maybe we’ll get to see clips of it later on.”

Recently, new DC Studios co-head Peter Safran said the film was “not releasable,” and called Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav’s decision to cancel the film “bold and courageous.” While Grace didn’t touch too much on that, she did say that she had meetings about Warner Bros. on what they thought of the film and that there were never any specifics on what might have hurt DC from a creative standpoint.

“I had my own meetings with Warner Bros. Film Group CEOs Pam Abdy and Mike De Luca, and they explained to me, on a granular level, what they felt about the project, things that were out of their hands, plans, and budgets that were set in place before they were even part of the team,” Grace explained. “There are a lot of things that I learned through the experience about moviemaking, that as an actress you have no control over. They weren’t really specific on anything creative in terms of what they felt about the film and how it would’ve hurt DC creatively. But I’m a human being, and people have perceptions and people read things. And when words are expressed very lightly about work that people really dedicated a lot of time to — not just myself but the whole crew — I can understand how it could be frustrating.”

Batgirl was set to star Grace (In the Heights) in the role of Barbara Gordon, the daughter of Gotham City police commissioner James Gordon. The hero was first seen in the 1967 Batman series with the late Yvonne Craig playing Barbara. Her first comic book appearance was in Detective Comics #357 by writer Gardner Fox and artist Carmine Infantino.