With the change of ownership at Warner Bros. Discovery, it seems that Batgirl may end up in the theaters after all.
According to a new report from Matthew Belloni at Puck News, David Zaslav – CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery – is re-examining the company’s streaming strategy. According to Belloni, there is currently debate at the company as to what to do with Batgirl. The film cost somewhere around $70 million and was originally intended as an HBO Max original, but a couple of things have changed in the film industry in the past couple of weeks.
First and foremost, The Batman took in over $750 million theatrically with just a 45-day window, and then went on to put up “huge numbers” in the first few days on HBO Max. This definitely makes one wonder if Batgirl shouldn’t go out to theaters and grab whatever money it can before heading to the streaming service.
The second big factor is Netflix stock took a massive hit last week following the announcement that it had lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter. The company also warned it was poised to lose millions more in the second quarter due to economic pressures and other outside factors. If Netflix, which has been viewed as the guiding star of the move to streaming is starting to see pull back from consumers, it’s going to cause other companies to reconsider their plans.
While Batgirl is in play it seems, it’s just merely a question of where the film will make its debut. This has already happened with Blue Beetle prior to the Warner Bros. Discovery merger. The film was originally planned to be direct to HBO Max, but that was quickly changed to being a theatrical release first.
Batgirl does not currently have a release date.
