‘Batgirl’ Is Dead, But HBO Max Will Have Tons Of Weirdo Christmas Movies

While Batgirl may never see the light of day, apparently Warner Bros Discovery is now holding so-called “funeral screenings” for the cast and crew to watch the film one final time before it's shipped off to whatever cinematic afterlife also houses Jerry Lewis’ The Day the Clown Cried and that creepy Louis CK movie about how it’s cool to be a pervert. 

In addition to cancelling the high-profile film, the company also announced that they would be pushing back the release dates of their Shazam and Aquaman sequels – which we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out, are the two upcoming DC movies that don’t star Ezra Miller. So what exactly is the company releasing at this point? Christmas movies. A whole bunch of Christmas movies. 

Yup, while HBO Max is no longer the home of Batgirl, it will be the home of no less than four straight-to-streaming Christmas movies, including A Christmas Story Christmas, the reboot of the holiday classic featuring the original cast … which we’re guessing totally ignores the cheapo sequel about Ralphie’s awkward teen years.

Weirdly, the script was penned by Nick Schenk, who is probably best known for writing multiple latter-day Clint Eastwood movies, including Cry Macho, The Mule, and Gran Torino – so hopefully old man Ralphie isn’t a racist cranky-pants with a score to settle. We’re also getting something called Holiday Harmony, and A Hollywood Christmas about a filmmaker who clashes with a “handsome network executive.” Then there’s A Christmas Mystery, which is reportedly about “a group of intrepid kids” who have to investigate the case of Santa’s missing jingle bells, which we assure you is not a euphemism. 

Look, we all like watching TV around the holidays, but it is kind of a bummer that HBO Max keeps cancelling highly-anticipated projects like Batgirl, and also straight-up deleting old shows, but is clearly making a play to compete with the Hallmark Channel and Netflix, who routinely churn out cloyingly sentimental, bargain basement holiday content. In retrospect, maybe Batgirl wouldn’t have been shelved if Barbara Gordon had been played by Candace Cameron Bure. 

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Thumbnail: Warner Bros Discovery/MGM