With it moving from a theatrical project to an HBO Max project with theatrical potential, we learned back in May 2021 that the Batgirl film had found its directors by bringing on Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah for the project. The pair have been riding high on their work for Bad Boys for Life which did significant numbers just before the pandemic and breathed new life into the franchise that most figured was done. They’ll be working from the script that Christina Hodson put together.
The film got underway with its production at the start of December as Adil El Arbi posted to Instagram about it. With the recent news of Michael Keaton boarding the project and raising some interesting questions, we recently got a look at the costume for Batgirl herself.
Now, some new cast news has been revealed with Ivory Aquino having joined the project to play Alysia Yeoh. The character is Barbara’s best friend and a bartender but is also the first major transgender character ever to appear in a live-action film adaptation of DC comics.
Previously, Warner Bros. and D Films picked Leslie Grace to play Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl. We also learned that J.K. Simmons is returning as the character of Commissioner Gordon in the film after playing the role in the 2017 Justice League film. Brendan Fraser is involved as the villain Firefly.
While DCEU films are lightly connected, this one is not connected to the upcoming The Batman film which has Jeffrey Wright playing Jim Gordon.
Batgirl has been riding a solid fan following for the past decade or so under several writers for DC Comics, reworking and building her up in new ways since her introduction in 1967 by Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino. While she’s appeared in numerous animated feature films and TV series and the ’66 Batman TV show, she’s never made the leap to feature film.
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