Brendan Fraser continues riding his career renaissance into his latest picture, Rental Family, which has received positive reviews, particularly for the American-Canadian actor’s charming performance, not to mention he has recently confirmed plans to return to his star-making role of Rick O’Connell for another sequel of The Mummy. The Oscar-winning actor had fallen out of Hollywood’s graces for many years due to a number of personal and professional setbacks, most notably when, in 2018, he publicly accused the then-president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Philip Berk, for sexually assaulting him years prior.
This allegedly led to Fraser being blacklisted from the industry for a time, but in this new era of his career he hasn’t let the experience quell his voice and call bullshit in the industry, which is apparent in his latest comments on the Batgirl movie that was shelved in 2022.
Directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, best known for Bad Boys for Life and Bad Boys: Ride or Die, the feature was set in the initial DC universe before it was rebooted by James Gunn and James Safran, with the likes of J. K. Simmons and Michael Keaton reprising their roles as Commissioner Gordon and Bruce Wayne/Batman respectively, while Leslie Grace was cast as Barabara Gordon/Batgirl. Fraser, then, played the lead villain, Ted Carson/Pyro, a veteran and sociopathic pyromaniac.
Batgirl had been shot and was borderline finished in post-production, until Warner Bros. shocked fans and journalists alike by suddenly deciding to shelve the movie in favour of an insurance claim, an unprecedented move at the time. Fraser has previously voiced his disappointment at the move, but in an interview with the Associated Press last week he didn’t mince words, saying, “The product— I’m sorry ‘content’—is being commodified to the extent that it’s more valuable to burn it down and get the insurance on it than to give it a shot in the marketplace.” Ever the empath, Fraser then homed in on perhaps the greatest tragedy of Warner Bros.’ move, which is that “there’s a generation of little girls who don’t have a heroine to look up to and go, ‘She looks like me.’”
However, Batgirl is not the only victim of Warner Bros.’ brutal cost cutting measures, as just over a year later in 2023, the production company opted to also shelve the live action animated comedy Coyote vs. Acme in favour of a tax write-off, much to the chagrin of one of the movie’s leads, Will Forte, who said, “When I first heard that our movie was getting ‘deleted,’ I hadn’t seen it yet. So I was thinking what everyone else must have been thinking: this thing must be a hunk of junk. But then I saw it. And it’s incredible.”
Even Forte doubted Coyote vs. Acme, which is a legal comedy feature that sees Wile E. Coyote (voiced by Canadian actor and voice artist, Eric Bauza) suing Acme for the failure of their products over the years while chasing the Road Runner. However, likely in part due to public backlash, Warner Bros. decided to shop the movie around to other distributors, and after several unsuccessful negotiations with potential suitors, Ketchup Entertainment, who had previously bought another Looney Tunes movie, The Day the Earth Blew Up, eventually secured the distribution rights, a move cheered by many, particularly Forte.
While Coyote vs. Acme is not slated for official release until August 28th, 2026, early marketing for the movie has already kicked off, with new images released to Empire last week, while in the same article director Dave Green noted, “We want to pop that myth and get into his soul and show you what really makes him tick.” He also acknowledged that “to be here talking to you today, it feels absolutely surreal at this point”, which is I am sure is an understatement to say the least, but fans and casual filmgoers will eventually get to experience what is an incredibly promising movie, having thankfully avoided the same fate as Batgirl, thanks in no small part to Will Forte, the public, and of course Ketchup Entertainment.