Warner Bros.’ expansion of the Bat-wing of its myriad plans for the DC movieverse just took a major leap forward: a new cinematic Barbara Gordon has been found, and it’s In the Height’s Leslie Grace.
Deadline reports that Grace—one of several names to emerge on a purported final list of options earlier this week, alongside Isabella Merced, Zoey Deutch and Haley Lu Richardson—will play Barbara Gordon in the standalone Batgirl movie, set to debut exclusively on HBO Max. Bad Boys’ Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah will direct the film, based on a script from Birds of Prey’s Christina Hodson, who was brought into the project after disgraced director Joss Whedon bowed out, citing that he was unable to create a story for one of the most popular female heroes in DC Comics’ stable of characters.
Batgirl is just one of the many, many Bat-adjacent movies DC has in the works at Warner Bros. right now. Of course, Matt Reeves’ The Batman will bring in Robert Pattinson’s new take on the Dark Knight, but Andy Muschietti’s Flash standalone will also bring back both Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton’s versions of the iconic protector of Gotham. Chris McKay, who recently directed The Tomorrow War at Amazon, has long been attached to a Nightwing movie that he’s still talking about actually doing. And that’s not to rule out HBO Max offerings like the upcoming season of Titans—which will also feature Savannah Welch as Barbara Gordon, more specifically in her role as Oracle rather than Batgirl—and the planned Gotham PD spinoff set in the world of Reeves’ Batman film.
We currently have no idea which continuity, if any, this new version of the character will be featuring in but we’ll bring you more on Batgirl as and when we learn it.
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