Joss Whedon exits Batgirl movie, admits 'failing' to find a story

Joss Whedon has stepped away from making the planned Batgirl movie.

The Avengers and Buffy The Vampire Slayer director was set to both write and direct the film for Warner Bros, but has now pulled out.

In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, he said: “Batgirl is such an exciting project, and Warners/DC such collaborative and supportive partners, that it took me months to realize I really didn’t have a story.

“I’m grateful to Geoff [Johns, DC president] and Toby [Emmerich, Warner Bros president] and everyone who was so welcoming when I arrived, and so understanding when I… uh, is there a sexier word for ‘failed’?”

Sources told THR that Whedon had struggled to ‘crack the code of what a Batgirl movie should be’, and that also a male director helming the project could perhaps have come under excessive scrutiny in the current Hollywood climate.

Whedon was announced as the helmsman of the project in March 2017, but who might now take over the project is not yet known.

Batgirl has been a character in the DC canon since 1961.

Her best-known incarnation is that of Barbara Gordon, the daughter of Gotham City police commissioner James Gordon.

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