There are countless heroes and heroines in the world of Marvel and DC Comics that have been brought to life through the screen by big companies like Disney and Warner Bros over the years, and that legacy has continued even past the death of the major Marvel creator Stan Lee. But plenty of films have been created or viewed behind the scenes and then discarded or redone before release, and this seems to be another occurrence of such.
Ivory Aquino is a transgender woman that has managed to land some really great roles in her acting career so far. Of course being transgender leads to a lot of hard times and harsh dialogues about her, but the actress has worked hard to be where she is and continues to push forward.
Recently, Ivory played Alysia Yeoh, Batgirl aka Barbara Gordon’s roommate and the first major trans character to appear in a DC film. This was shown for private screenings among Warner Bros executives and was considered a large step for progressive acting and superheroes.
But this project came to a sad conclusion as Warner Bros’ CEO stated that those screenings would be ‘funeral screenings’ and the film was to be postponed or even destroyed indefinitely from being used for public screenings.
This led to a huge outcry from the actress herself, who wrote public letters of how devastated and upset she was about this development. She implored the cast and crew as well as higher ups to rethink this and to continue on with the idea.
She heard that the movie was being played for funeral screenings and then to be destroyed, and spoke up loudly through social media asking them to reconsider this action stating that the workers and cast put their hearts into this project.
The actress even had been crying and grieving this intense change and loss from how hard her and cast members had worked on the film, being unable to talk to anybody about it at all and feeling lost from this change.
Ivory continued on with her major statement explaining how much of the industry is a machine, and while herself and other smaller “cogs” are considered less than and others have great responsibilities on their hands that shouldn’t be disregarded as something to throw away.
While they may be lesser parts in the whole of the bottom line and even larger picture of profits, expenditures, and intricacies in the world of film Ivory Aquino said they are also artists and workers that should be considered too.
And while she may agree that the interest was low on the film, she urged the CEO to reconsider distribution to the public because of how these events have turned attention back towards the film and may have turned events to make it profitable again.
This film has been in the works since 2021, but new leadership and changes in Warner Bros led to its shelving and being put on the backboard in favor of other big releases that caught more public attention than Batgirl did.
Either way, it’s currently unsure what will happen to all the hard work put into Batgirl as well as Ivory Aquino’s plea to be heard by the big wigs in film industries. But many are hoping to get this movie released, both those that worked on it and interested members of the public. DC’s first transgender character isn’t just a superficial title and this would be a huge move forward if the film is in fact distributed to public viewing. Only time will tell.