Grace looks back at junking of ‘Batgirl’, questions studio’s move

LOS ANGELES: When the "Batgirl" unit completed its seven-month production schedule in Scotland, Leslie Grace received a gift from Brendan Fraser, who played her nemesis, Firefly, in the DC movie -- a gold necklace that included two charms, a little bell and a pair of dice, reports 'Variety'.

"The card said a lot of really sweet things, but he (Fraser) basically said, 'I give you this necklace because in this business you gotta have a little luck. So ring your bell and never stop'," Grace recalls, according to 'Variety'. "It was just like, whoa. And after all this, it has had so much meaning."

"All this" is the August bombshell that Warner Bros Discovery had decided to kill the film, co-directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. After the first disappointing test screenings, WBD CEO David Zaslav chose to take a tax write-off instead of trying to complete work on the film, which had cost the debt-ridden studio $90 million, and would have cost many more millions to finish, 'Variety' adds.

Grace says she had no idea the movie, originally set to stream on HBO Max, was shelved, until it was first reported by the 'New York Post'.

"I found out like the rest of you," she says, according to 'Variety'. "And then my phone just started blowing up." One of the callers was Fraser.

"What I find most lamentable is that now a whole generation of little girls are going to have to wait longer to see a Batgirl and say, 'Hey, she looks like me'," he says, according to 'Variety'. "That makes me sad. I know how good she was. And I know what this would mean to so many people."

Looking back at the junking of 'Batgirl', and the conversation she had with the studio bosses, Grace told 'Variety': "They weren't really specific on anything creative in terms of what they felt about the film and how it would have hurt DC creatively."

Did she get to see the film, 'Variety' asked Grace. "That's the one thing I asked for. I got to see the film as far as it got to; the film wasn't complete by the time that it was tested," Grace said. "There were a bunch of scenes that weren't even in there."

She continued: "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."

Grace is now back in the spotlight with "How to Win Friends and Disappear People", a new comedy-thriller podcast series from QCode about a computer scientist (Soni Bringas) in New York City who discovers her neighbour, played by Grace, is a vampire.