What About Flashpoint?

The rumor that Batgirl will never see the light of day is now hitting the Hollywood trade media.  This is all but an official announcement. 

The Woklings, who never planned to see it, are stamping their little feet over this decision and calling it racist.  But that was to be expected, any kind of loss of ground in the culture war sends them into fits. 

But the bigger question isn’t the fate of Batgirl, that appears to be sealed, it is what is going to be done with Flashpoint? Officially, David Zaslav’s position is that it will be released next year as scheduled although with not much money spent on the hype train due to the fact that even if anyone knew where to find its star, Warner Brothers doesn’t dare let him out in public because he’s bugfuck crazy.

Shelving Batgirl was easy because at $70 million it was financed internally at Warner Brothers.  At $200+ million, Flashpoint had to have outside backing.  Those financers all have contracts with extensive guarantees built into them, requiring such things as a theatrical release and certain amounts spent on promotions. While shelving it is an option, it is an extremely costly one given the size of the penalties Warner will have to pay.

But I suspect that the biggest issue is the one nobody else, (except me), is mentioning, Henry Cavil’s future with DC has to be decided before anything else can be decided about Flashpoint.  Cavil was no longer under contract when Flashpoint was made, that is why part of the plot retcons him out of existence without ever showing his face.  

Affleck was in Flashpoint because he was still under contract for one more appearance.  His Batman movie was scrapped but he was still under contract.  So, he showed up, got Batfleck killed, which cleared the way for Batgirl in the reset at the end of the movie, with Michael Keaton doing a pseudo-Batman Beyond mentor thing.

Except now there is no Batgirl, and now Keaton is out of Aquaman 2, replaced by Ben Affleck who has to have a new contract now.  This means that that Flashpoint subplot just vanished.  So there will have to be yet more reshoots for Flashpoint but the bigger issue is Superman.

David Zaslav wants the Last Son of Krypton front and center of the franchise, so I wouldn’t bet on diverse Supergirl of color’s continued presence in the DCU.  And even if she is there, she’s going to be the rearview mirror of her cousin Kal-El. 

If Cavil doesn’t sign then there will be reshoots that will account for whoever they sign to play Superman.  

But if Henry Cavil does sign then there is no point to Flashpoint.  

The film’s only real purpose was to get rid of problematic straight white male characters and replace them with race and gender swapped derivatives.  But the executives that started down that road have all been fired.

If Henry Cavil signs, then the odds are pretty good that Flashpoint is torpedoed and will join Batgirl on the shelf.

UPDATE: Supergirl movie is scrapped. I can see your shocked faces through the screen.