Why Batgirl Just Got Cancelled
4. It's A Tax "Opportunity"
Though there's been a lot of speculation as to why Batgirl got cancelled, one reason is that not releasing it would apparently make WB more money than if it did.
According to Deadline, the official line is that the decision is down to "purchase accounting". Cancelling and writing the film off now, according to the report, "allows Warner Bros Discovery to not have to carry the losses on its books at a time when the studio is trying to pare down $3 billion in debt across its divisions."
This write up essentially says that Warners was faced with a choice: gamble on Batgirl and pump a load more money into reshoots to make it more of a tentpole and then splash out on marketing and hope it wins big, or write the film off and use this "purchase accounting" opportunity to write off some of its losses. Ultimately it decided on the latter.
This was also backed up by Variety, which stated that the decision was down to the decidedly un-sexy decision to save money by marking the film off as a "tax write-down".