The Boys Season 4 Finale Easter Egg Mocks DC’s Batgirl Cancellation

Amazon Prime Video’s The Boys is known for satirizing various political and pop cultural events. In the fourth season’s finale, it continues to do so with an easter egg in Season 4 Episode 8 that mocks DC’s cancellation of the Batgirl film.

The Boys Season 4 finale jokes about DC’s Batgirl movie cancellation

In the early moments of The Boys Season 4 finale, The Boys cleverly satirizes the cancellation of DC’s Batgirl movie. Episode 4 features a segment in VNN Today and it reports that Vought Studios has canceled “the eagerly anticipated film” Training A-Train, though it is “completely finished.”

Made in the same vein as The Blind Side, the fictional biopic’s cast included the eponymous Supe and Will Ferrell. Ashley Barrett appears on the screen and explains that they realized that they would make more money from the write-off.

This is quite similar to what happened to Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah’s Batgirl. In August 2022, Warner Bros. Pictures announced that they would not release the film even though it was already in post-production. Initial reports claimed that the film just did not work, as per The Wrap. There were also reports that the response of the test-screening audience was considerably negative, as reported by Collider.

However, Variety speculated in an article that the cancellation happened. This is because the studio surmised getting a write-off on the tax break for the film. According to them, this would be more profitable than releasing it. Batgirl reportedly had an initial budget of $70-75 million. This had later ballooned to $90 million by the time the film’s post-production started. The movie was supposed to come out on HBO Max before it was canceled.

The opening scene of The Boys Season 4 finale also parodies the circumstances surrounding the release of the Snyder Cut of Justice League while calling back to the show’s third season. Having learned of the cancellation, Training A-Train director Adam Bourke urges the fans in a social media post to keep rewatching the trailer so he can convince Vought to #RELEASETHEBOURKECUTAGAIN.