Brendan Fraser hits out over scrapped Batgirl movie: "The product – I'm sorry, 'content' – is being commodified to the extent that it’s more valuable to burn it down"

Brendan Fraser has spoken out against his canceled Batgirl movie, which was scrapped by Warner Bros. over three years ago.

"A whole movie. I mean, there were four floors of production in Glasgow. I was sneaking into the art department just to geek out," Fraser told AP. He would have played Ted Carson, AKA pyromaniac villain Firefly, in the movie.

"The tragedy of that is that there’s a generation of little girls who don’t have a heroine to look up to and go, “She looks like me.” I mean, Michael Keaton came back as Batman. The Batman! The product – I’m sorry, 'content' – is being commodified to the extent that it’s more valuable to burn it down and get the insurance on it than to give it a shot in the marketplace."

The movie, which would have been released straight to HBO Max, was shelved in the summer of 2022, despite being completed. Leslie Grace would have played Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, alongside Keaton's Batman and J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon.

"The decision to not release Batgirl reflects our leadership's strategic shift as it relates to the DC universe and HBO Max," Warner Bros. said in a statement at the time. "Leslie Grace is an incredibly talented actor and this decision is not a reflection of her performance."

Reports attributed the cancelation in part to a tax write-down: the movie was commissioned before Warner Bros. merged with Discovery, and the company was able to receive tax benefits if it didn't use materials from pre-merger for profit.

Next up for Fraser is comedy-drama Rental Family, in which he plays a struggling actor living in Tokyo who joins a rental family agency to act out roles in other people's lives.

Rental Family is out now in US theaters and arrives in UK cinemas on January 16. For more on what to watch, check out our guide to the other best upcoming movies.