Singer and songwriter Leslie Grace has reportedly been tapped for the lead role of Barbara Gordon in the Warner Bros. and DC Films’ Batgirl film, according to Deadline. Previous reports indicated the likes of Isabela Merced, Zoey Deutch, Leslie Grace and Haley Lu Richardson were being considered for the role.
In addition to a solid audition, Deadline reported today that Grace was on the studio’s radar due to her performance in Jon M. Chu’s film adaptation of In The Heights, a musical drama Grace starred in that was released in June 2021. To date, that role is the only one she has done in film, although she has plenty of experience performing musically throughout her life.
Batgirl will be exclusive to the HBO Max streaming service, and the film is set to be co-directed by the Belgian-Moroccan duo of Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, who directed Bad Boys for Life (2020), as well as a few episodes of Snowfall and Ms. Marvel, among other projects. Christina Hodson, who wrote the screenplay for the upcoming Birds Of Prey and The Flash movies, was hired in 2018 to write the screenplay for Batgirl after Joss Whedon left the project.
The Batgirl character first appeared in the comics in 1961, although she has been mostly absent in the live-action film adaptations to this point. Alicia Silverstone portrayed an altered version of the character in Batman & Robin (1997), as she was not the daughter of Commissioner James Gordon, but rather the child of Alfred. In The Dark Knight, Hannah Gunn played the role of Gordon’s daughter, but she was not named in the film and not a large part of the movie.
Batgirl is slated for a release in either 2022 or 2023 on HBO Max.