The Batgirl movie is moving full steam ahead. The film has officially locked down its villain, which is good news, and that villain will be played by the recently resurgent and usually awesome Brendan Fraser, which is better news. Fraser has signed on to play Firefly, a Gotham City foe who has yet to appear in a live-action film, but did have a prominent presence in the hit Batman: Arkham Knight video game.
Deadline was the first to report Fraser’s casting for the highly-anticipated film, which will star Leslie Grace (In The Heights) as the title character and be directed by the Bad Boys for Life team of Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah:
The film will bow on HBO Max, marking one of the first major DC properties to debut exclusively on the streamer. Christina Hodson penned the script with Kristin Burr producing. While plot details are under wraps, it is known that Barbara Gordon, the daughter of Commissioner Gordon, will be the character behind the cape in this version. Gordon is the most established version of the Batgirl character and was first introduced in 1961 as Betty Kane.
Batgirl will also have an interesting place in the once crumbling DC Extended Universe. Grace’s version of the character will reportedly be the daughter of J.K. Simmons‘ Commission Gordon, who first appeared in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. That would place Batgirl in the same canon as the upcoming The Flash film.
On top of all that, directors Abri and Fallah also reportedly said in an interview that Batman will appear in the Batgirl film. As for which one, they simply said, “the real one.” That doesn’t really narrow it down, considering we currently have Robert Pattinson, Ben Affleck, and Michael Keaton all in the mix in one way or another. But presumably, that distinction will be made clear after The Flash wraps up its reality-breaking adventure through the DC Films universe.
Either way, congrats to Brendan Fraser for joining the elite pantheon of Hollywood action stars who’ve taken a crack at terrorizing Gotham.
(Via Deadline)
