Trans ‘Batgirl’ actress begs Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav to release canned $90m film

A transgender Batgirl star has begged a studio  CEO to reconsider his decision to shelve the movie after denying that it is woke, and insisting that the furor over its cancelation would send audiences flocking to see it.

Ivory Aquino fired off a 12 tweet statement begging David Zaslav, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO, to salvage the film – saying she had been left ‘crying from grief’ at the decision.

Aquino, 42, plays Batgirl’s best friend Alysia Yeoh in the $90m movie, and is the first transgender actress to appear in a DC Comics movie role.

She wrote: ‘

‘Dear Mr. Zaslav, I just read an article @THR about supposed ‘funeral screenings’ of #Batgirl and the possibility afterwards that the film footage would be destroyed,’ she wrote.

‘If this is the case, as one of many who poured our hearts into the making of this movie, I ask that this measure be reconsidered.

‘As much as I’ve tried my best to be strong these past few weeks, I’d find myself crying, for lack of a better term, from grief, and tonight was one of those nights.’ 

Aquino added that it was wrong to label the story ‘woke’, because she saw it as a father-daughter story, and a reflection of our times.

‘As much as Batgirl has been labeled a woke film, it simply came together that way because of writing that reflects the world we live in,’ she said.

‘For me, more than anything, it is a father-daughter story which hits close to home as my Dad passed a year ago, shortly before I booked this project, and I was hoping it would resonate with other children around the world, grown and not-so-grown, who hold their fathers in the highest esteem and who could see Batgirl as a story of that special bond.’

Aquino said she had not been able to discuss her hurt and disappointment with others, saying talking to her cast mates would ‘be akin to rubbing salt on a still-open wound’.

She said she appreciated that Zaslav was under intense pressure to keep the studio’s finances in check, but said the huge attention given to the scrapping of the blockbuster movie negated the need to spend any further cash marketing it.

She made her plea a day after The Hollywood Reporter revealed Warner Bros. was holding ‘funeral screenings’ of the movie on its lot for those involved in its production.

The film is set to be written off as a tax write-down, amid rumors all existing prints of the flick will now be destroyed.  

The $90 million film was shot in the Scottish city of Glasgowfrom November to March, and was in post-production when it was cancelled on August 3, with Warner Bros. Discovery citing budgetary constraints.  

The film tells the story of Batgirl, who in ‘real’ life is the daughter of Commissioner Gordon, Barbara Gordon, fighting a villain named Firefly, played by Brendan Fraser.

Firefly turned to a life of crime after he is fired from his job, loses his health insurance and could no longer care for his sick wife. 

According to those who have seen the now-scrapped film, Michael Keaton’s Batman was only featured in a few scenes, and the costumes were subpar.

‘I’ll say I’m not that surprised Batgirl got canceled as it features a woke Latino Batgirl and Barbara Gordon in a story that sounds downright awful,’ Matt McGloin wrote for Cosmic Book News.

A source also told The New York Post: ‘They think an unspeakable Batgirl is going to be irredeemable.’

And Collider Editor-In-Chief Steven Weintraub tweeted: ‘Spoke to people that saw #Batgirl, and they said it was a huge disappointment.

‘Also that the costumes looked cheap, especially Keaton’s Batman costume.’ 

Since taking over the combined Warner Bros. and Discovery behemoth, he moved quickly to slash costs in the combined company, with an expected $3 billion in cost savings projected from eliminating redundancies.

One of his biggest moves was to immediately pull the plug on the $300 million CNN+ streaming service, just weeks after it launched.

In addition to scrapping Batgirl, he also axed the upcoming Scoob! sequel, Scoob!: Holiday Haunt – which cost $40 million to produce.

Yet Aquino urged Zaslav to see the cast and crew as ‘more than widgets’ – saying they ‘are fellow human beings and artists’.

She also said she was confident that the drama surrounding the cancellation of the film meant it was now destined to exceed box office expectations.

‘If a month ago, there wasn’t a marketing budget for Batgirl, I’d venture to say that that has been taken care of by the turn of events these past few weeks,’ she said.

‘We’ve been fortunate to have such amazing supporters since the beginning, from Glasgow where we filmed and from all over the world.

‘Now, more people know about our labor of love and are eager to see the movie.’

She concluded: ‘I do hope you get to read this letter. Consider releasing Batgirl. She’s always been an underdog and has nowhere to go but up.’

Grace herself has not commented on the axing of her film since the day after the news broke, earlier this month.

‘I am proud of the love, hard work and intention all of our incredible cast and tireless crew put into this film over 7 months in Scotland,’ she wrote on Instagram.

‘I feel blessed to have worked among absolute greats and forged relationships for a lifetime in the process!

‘To every Batgirl fan – THANK YOU for the love and belief, allowing me to take on the cape and become, as Babs said best, “my own damn hero!” #Batgirl for life!’

Aquino’s letter came as fired HBO executives attacked Warner Bros. Discovery – their new parent company – and accused it of wiping out diversity at the network by cutting the jobs of non-white staffers during cost-cutting.

HBO reportedly laid off about 70 people in the last month, and as many as 13 of the staffers let go were people of color, according to a Daily Beast report on Thursday citing two former HBO executives who asked not to be named.

Among those laid off were reportedly Jen Kim, an Asian woman who served as the senior vice president of the international team, and Kaela Barnes, a black woman who worked on Kim’s team. 

The layoffs have ‘amplified the lack of diversity at HBO,’ one of the former execs said, adding that ‘a lot of black and brown people lost their jobs.’

‘I don’t think anyone knows just how white the staff is,’ one of the executives said.

The executives suggested that Discovery, which acquired HBO parent company Warner Bros in the April merger, has a different content strategy that they fear will be pushed on the premium cable network.

The Discovery+ streaming platform is expected to merge with HBO Max at some point, and the combined platform may even be re-branded entirely.

One former exec describes Discovery+ as a ‘more general audience platform that doesn’t have the specificity that HBO Max was tailored to.’ 

‘I think Discovery is just a very ‘all’ audience, [they] don’t wanna make things that are political, topical, alienate Middle America—more Chip and Joanna,’ the person said, referring to the home renovation show Fixer Upper: Welcome Home hosted by Chip and Joanna Gaines.