Variety has reported a tectonic plate shift in the makeup of DC’s film universe: Joss Whedon is bringing us a Batgirl film.
Whedon is set to write, direct, produce the project, with no other producers currently attached. This would make him the first creator to step across the Marvel-DC divide as the two comics titans duke it out for box office supremacy.
It is likely that Whedon has something approaching carte blanche on this project–initial rumors on Batman v Superman suggested that Jena Malone was playing Barbara Gordon in a scene the ultimately ended up on the cutting room floor, but the director’s cut later revealed this not to be the case. This means that the character has not been brought into the DC Cinematic Universe, and there is ample room to weave Barbara into the framework that BvS, Justice League, and The Batman create (seeing as she will likely be operating in Gotham, adjacent to Batman’s coming and goings).
No word yet on casting or a release date, but this in an interesting move for Whedon to be sure. More to come….
Only if Batgirl becomes Oracle at the end and leads a film version of the Birds of Prey
Oh. My. God. Whedon and Batgirl! This will be awesome as long as Snyder gets locked out.
Oh god, …skip.
This is going to be bad. I think I preferred Batfleck and Murderman to Whedon, and worse; his personal cult of fandom followers.
I’m super-excited about this, and it would be awesome if the Oracle/Birds of Prey story was part of it, whether in this film or down the road! I think Whedon is what the DC film universe really needs
This would make him the first creator to step across the Marvel-DC divide as the two comics titans duke it out for box office supremacy.
Did everyone forget Bryan Singer trading X-Men for Superman back in 2005/2006? He even got booted from his office at the 20th Century Fox lot over this issue (until someone remembered he was legally allowed due to producing House at the time).
I had been going to speculate that Whedon might be eyeing the Cassandra Cain version of Batgirl, whose general background strikes me as more typical of Whedon heroines than that of Barbara Gordon. But the EW report on this announcement says that not only will we get Barbara Gordon, but that Whedon is taking his cues from the Simone “New 52” version of the character.
From both a continuity perspective and a moviemaking angle, that’s an interesting choice. If Whedon follows “New 52” continuity, it means two things: we wouldn’t be getting an origin story, and we’d be seeing a Barbara Gordon who’s had prior careers as Batgirl and then as Oracle before taking up the Batcape again. On one hand, this would be extremely unusual in the lexicon of Hollywood superhero cinema…but Whedon is generally good at taking unusual creative directions and making them highly watchable.
I wonder, though, if perhaps Whedon is planning to finesse the continuity in some way. In particular, I think the DCEU continuity may turn out to be one in which Oracle never existed — not least because if she had existed, her footprints should have shown up somewhere in the backgrounds of at least one of the DCEU movies released to date, and I don’t recall that they have. (This would not be the first instance of a Batverse in which Barbara’s history unfolded differently; in the Bruce Timm DCAU setting, Barbara went from Batgirl in the original B:TAS run to police commissioner in Batman Beyond without passing through an Oracular period in between. And the recent Lego Batman Movie seems to have taken its cue from the Timm sub-franchise; there too, Barbara is police commissioner first and Batgirl second.)
On balance, I have a degree of optimism where a Whedon Batgirl movie is concerned. I don’t think Warner/DC would have inked a deal without hearing enough of a pitch to ensure that Whedon wasn’t going to inappropriately break their heroine — and I don’t think that, in the wake of the recent release of the animated version of The Killing Joke, they’re likely to want to go anywhere near that storyline again if they can avoid it.
@6: There is a shot of the Batcomputer in Batman v Superman where you can see “Oracle Network” on the screen.
And there was a faux travel brochure for Gotham released as promotional material before the film which referenced The Clocktower, Barbara Gordon’s base of operations during her stint as Oracle.
#6, Barbara has a pretty classical Silver Age origin with new skills plus other neat twists, as well as an origin that includes a friendship with Pamela Isley in the animated The Batman series which ran for about 4-5 years post the B-TAS/DCAU. She came on in the third year and featured in the show till the end. In fact, unlike the Silver Age, she was introduced first, a season before Dick/Robin was brought on. It’s currently running on Netflix and has been for a while.
For the people that didn’t read the final Variety post, Whedon will be producing, so vis-à-vis ‘carte blanche,’ he’ll likely get substantially similar control as in the MCU – he’ll get to cast Barbara (and yes, it will be her), although since Snyder already cast JK Simmons as the commissioner, some resemblance or other rationale for the lack thereof will be needed. Some reports indicate this will come out as New Line release (which is where Shazam – DC’s Captain Marvel – and Black Adam films are currently shingled). Whedon will write the script and only the decisions made for Gotham City Sirens and The Batman‘s solo turn that either impact Gotham, or Barbara specifically, enough will matter.
Folks need to remember there’s 50+ years worth of history for some of these characters and that means that a BoP lead by a former Batgirl, now Oracle isn’t happening unless that’s what Whedon does here. Plus, the popularity of both the Simone and Babs Tarr runs mean most know/prefer BG as Batgirl, just as the DCEU so far means no Jason Todd (excepts perhaps as flashback) and Dick, will be an adult Nightwing.
Not sure there’s anything to suggest that Whedon is going to or has to follow the New 52. He is a comic content creator in his own right with a history as reader/fan of DC so he’s aware of the Killing Joke, as well as other aspects of Barbara to pick from. I doubt he’ll at all look towards Frank Miller for any ideas, FWIW.
There’s absolutely no reason for Whedon to cast someone with resemblance to JK Simmons. Just casting another white person will do; and in fact, they could even cast a Barbara of a different ethnicity and say she was adopted, or someone of mixed heritage and say Gordon didn’t marry a white woman.
I am confident that anything Whedon brings us will be better DC than anything since Christopher Reeve.
Magnus @10- The can cast whoever, and they don’t need to explain anything. I don’t feel it would be anyone’s business to ask “hey, Gordon, how come your daughter …?”