DC’s New Movie Cancellation Repeats Its Batgirl Mistake

DC’s reported cancellation of its Nightwing movie is a repeat of the studio’s Batgirl mistake. James Gunn and Peter Safran are currently charting the next ten years of movies, series, animation, and games that will be set in their new DC Universe; however, some DC movies will not be part of that universe. Gunn and Safran inherited four finished films that had been produced by the former DC management to be released in 2023, which include the already-released Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash, and Blue Beetle, as well as December’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, the DCEU’s last movie.

While those four movies will have been released by the end of the year, that is not the case for all the projects that were in the works at DC. The studio made waves by doing something truly unprecedented — scrapping a fully shot superhero movie. It was announced in 2022 that DC had cancelled the Batgirl movie, instead opting to make the film a tax write-off in Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav’s quest to reduce financial loss at the DC parent company. Following Batgirl‘s cancellation, a new report points to another DC movie in development also being scrapped.

Nightwing’s Movie Cancellation Mirrors Batgirl’s Cut Issues

DC’s Nightwing movie was reportedly cancelled after a lengthy development process. The film had been in development hell since it was announced back in 2017, with little to no updates. Nightwing would have followed Dick Grayson, a character that has been teased by Gunn to be part of the new DC Universe, which explains why the film might have been ultimately cancelled. Nightwing would have been directed by The LEGO Batman Movie‘s Chris McKay.

Just like the studio did with Batgirl, scrapping the Nightwing movie after years of the project being worked on behind-the-scenes is not ideal. While Nightwing‘s cancellation does not come close to Batgirl‘s case – as the latter movie was fully shot before it was scrapped – both characters are similar enough that the choice to cancel Nightwing mirrors the issues with cutting Batgirl from a story point, while any financial reasoning for scrapping both movies would stem from the same source.

Why Keeping Batgirl & Nightwing May Be Better For DC Studios

There will be DC projects released outside the DC Universe, under the Elseworlds denomination. With this in mind, DC Studios bringing back Batgirl and Nightwing as Elseworlds movies would be better than just scrapping them. Batgirl featured Michael Keaton’s Batman, while Nightwing would be directed by McKay, who got the Bat-Family right in The LEGO Batman Movie, making both films promising. More than that, recent movies set in the DCEU or featuring DCU heroes, in Blue Beetle‘s case, have failed at the box office. Keeping Nightwing and Batgirl as Elseworlds stories — making changes to the films to fit that format if necessary — could potentially attract a bigger audience, offering variety for DC’s movie output.