Although Batgirl won’t be released on HBO Max (or in theaters for that matter), it seems that the scrapped movie has received secret screenings on the Warner Bros. lot.
According to THR, these secret Batgirl screenings have been for the cast and crew of the movie as well as representatives and executives. Appropriately enough, these have been described as “funeral screenings.” Directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah were in the midst of post-production when Batgirl was shelved, so the film was filled with temporary visual effects and score, but at least somebody got to see it.
The big question now is just what happens with Batgirl. Despite rumours, the film wasn’t shelved for any reasons regarding its quality; Instead, it was so the studio could take advantage of a tax write-down. Unlike Zack Snyder’s Justice League, Warner Bros. would find themselves in trouble if they attempted to release Batgirl. THR’s report states that studio’s generally get a certain percentage of a tax write-down right off the bat (sorry) and the rest spread out over several years. Some have claimed that Warner Bros. might actually destroy its Batgirl footage in order to get access to the full write-down, but that would be a rather drastic move.
Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah weren’t even able to keep any of the Batgirl footage for themselves. The pair recently said that they tried to save some footage when they learned of the movie’s fate, but the studio had already blocked it from their server. “Adil called and told me, ‘Go ahead! Shoot everything on your phone!’” Fallah explained. “I went on the server… Everything was gone. We were [like]… ‘F**ing shit!’… We did not [even] keep [the scenes] with Batman in it.” Batgirl wasn’t the only cancelled movie to receive a funeral screening, as Scoob! Holiday Haunt also had one last week.