Warner Bros. Axes DC Movie About a Beloved Batman Icon

Warner Bros. Discovery quietly binned a Catwoman movie a while back, and the way it happened is one of those Hollywood stories that starts small, gets weird, and ends with a shrug. If you were hoping for a Selina Kyle origin movie, here is the play-by-play.

What got canceled, exactly?

Swaybox Studios — the team now making the animated Dynamic Duo feature for DC Studios — had been developing a Catwoman film that centered on a young Selina Kyle. Think prequel-prequel: Catwoman as a kid. Per DC Film News, the project was killed in 2022 during Warner Bros. Discovery’s post-merger course correction.

How far did it get?

Far enough to be real. In a now-deleted 2025 interview with Biz New Orleans, Swaybox’s Arthur Mintz said the movie was actually greenlit as an HBO Max feature before the axe fell.

We were greenlit to make a project for HBO Max, a feature film based on Catwoman as a kid.

He canceled 42 projects, including ours.

According to ComicBookMovie’s write-up of that interview, the shutdown came about three months into development, when WBD boss David Zaslav pulled back on pumping so much straight-to-streaming content. If you remember that era, a lot of stuff vanished; this was one of the 42 things on the chopping block.

But did anyone inside the studio actually like it?

Surprisingly, yes. The Batman director Matt Reeves saw early footage from Swaybox’s take, helped cut a sizzle reel, and showed it to Zaslav. The response was reportedly positive, with a caveat: the pitch needed a 'larger story.' Translation: cool vibe, not big enough yet.

Could it come back in another form?

Maybe, but don’t hold your breath. Swaybox is deep into Dynamic Duo, which focuses on young versions of Dick Grayson and Jason Todd. There’s a non-zero chance a young Selina Kyle could pop up there, and pieces of the scrapped Catwoman concept could get recycled into that movie. As of now, though, the dedicated Catwoman-as-a-kid feature is not on the runway.

A little context for the character

Catwoman has been a DC fixture since Bill Finger and Bob Kane introduced her in 1940’s Batman #1. Over the decades we’ve seen Selina in a lot of forms — from Michelle Pfeiffer’s iconic take to Halle Berry’s much-memed detour to Anne Hathaway’s slick thief and Zoe Kravitz’s grounded version in The Batman. Doing a childhood-era Selina would’ve been a new swing.

The short version

• Swaybox Studios was developing an animated Catwoman feature for HBO Max, focused on a young Selina Kyle.
• The project was canceled in 2022 amid WBD’s streaming pullback; Arthur Mintz says it was one of 42 projects Zaslav cut.
• Matt Reeves saw footage, helped assemble a sizzle, and Zaslav reportedly liked it but wanted a 'larger story.'
• Swaybox’s current DC movie, Dynamic Duo, centers on kid Dick Grayson and Jason Todd; elements of Catwoman could theoretically migrate there, but nothing is promised.

This all first surfaced via DC Film News and ComicBookMovie’s recap of Mintz’s now-scrubbed interview, and was originally reported by Brandon Schreur at SuperHeroHype.