Posted in: Batgirl, HBO, Movies, Warner Bros | Tagged: batgirl, hbo max, movies, static shock, Warner Bros

Batgirl & Static Shock Considered "Risky," Might Go Direct to HBO Max

For all that HBO Max and Warner Bros. want to be at the forefront of the superhero genre, in some ways, they are very much still stuck in the past, and the irony of which is so bad your head might explode. DC, Warner Bros., and HBO Max are in the middle of trying to figure out what their superhero universe is going to look like in 2021 and beyond. A wrench was kind of thrown into the proceedings with COVID-19 delaying everything under the sun and forcing DC and Warner Bros. to not only move Wonder Woman 1984 to a hybrid release but to give their entire 2021 release schedule a hybrid release. In a New York Times article about the president of DC Films Walter Hamada, how Warner Bros. and DC will be releasing movies in the coming years was talked about. When it came to projects going directly to HBO Max, two heroes, Batgirl and Static Shock, were cited as "riskier."

The most expensive DC movies (up to four a year, starting in 2022) are designed for release in theaters, Mr. Hamada said. Additional superhero films (two annually is the goal, perhaps focused on riskier characters like Batgirl and Static Shock) will arrive exclusively on HBO Max, the fledgling streaming service owned by WarnerMedia.

A Static Shock movie was announced during DC FanDome. In October, Michael B. Jordan joined the production while Batgirl has been in development hell for many years and at one point had Joss Whedon attached through he walked away in February 2018. The last we heard, Christina Hodson is writing the script. It's unclear whether it's the writer of the article citing Static Shock and Bargirl as "riskier" or if it was Hamada, but if it is Hamada, that is utterly baffling. The studio that made nearly a billion dollars on Wonder Woman thinks Batgirl is a risky property. And while I know Marvel is your rival, you couldn't have missed the billion-dollar box office and multiple Oscar nominations that Black Panther got. We can very much hope that it's the writer of the article who put those two heroes in the "risky" category because if it is DC and Warner Bros. They still consider a female hero and a POC hero "risky," then they haven't learned anything in the last couple of years. That doesn't bode well for the future of the DC universe on the big and small screens.

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