New Batgirl Officially Cast, Dominican American Actress Lands The Role
DC has chosen their Barbara Gordon for the upcoming Batgirl movie.
Yesterday, we reported that DC was hard at work, searching for their Barbara Gordon. They were screen-testing three actresses. One of them was Zoey Deutch, famous for her role in The Politician on Netflix and in Zombieland 2. Another was Isabela Merced, famous for her role as Dora in Dora the Explorer. And then there was Leslie Grace, who was previously most well known as a musician, but recently came to fame on the big screen when she stood out among a stellar cast in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical, In The Heights. Today, The Hollywood Reporter has brought us big news: they’ve made their final decision, and Leslie Grace is going to be playing Barbara Gordon in a new Batgirl movie for the DC Cinematic Universe.
Understandably, Leslie Grace herself is quite excited to take on the role of Batgirl. As soon as the news broke, she hopped on Twitter to thank DC for welcome her to the family and promising that she will be giving the role of Barabra Gordon all she has got.
Of note, the DC universe has been doing a better job embracing Latina actresses as of late. Sasha Calle is playing Supergirl in The Flash and reportedly going to be getting her own solo Supergirl movie down the line. Rachel Zegler has a role in Shazam! Fury of the Gods, but the team behind the superhero film has not disclosed what her role is yet. And now, DC is adding Leslie Grace, a Dominican American singer and actress, to the world of DC superheroes with Batgirl.
This movie has been a long time coming. Back in 2017, Joss Whedon had signed on to write a script and make the movie happen for DC, but then that never happened. This time around, we’re more hopeful as more talent has been moving forward with progress steadily for a while now. Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah are signed on to direct Batgirl. Previously, they’ve worked on Bad Boys For Life. The scriptwriter is Christina Hodson, who has worked with DC on Birds of Prey and the upcoming film The Flash.
Now that they have their Barbara Gordon cast, we can expect them to pick up the pace and schedule filming for Batgirl soon, though at this point a release date hasn’t been set. According to what The Hollywood Reporter hears, we may be able to see Batgirl in 2023. It sounds like the solo movie may be going directly to HBO Max, but Warner Bros hasn’t confirmed any of their plans yet.
While Leslie Grace has only just been introduced on film as Nina in In The Heights, which had a large ensemble cast, she managed to stand out strongly in her part. That movie was also with Warner Bros, so she likely made a strong impression with the studio. In the coming months, we can expect to learn a lot more about Leslie Grace, the Batgirl movie, and how this film is going to fit in with the ever-growing DC universe.
