Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah have seized their Hollywood opportunity with both hands, leveraging the critical and commercial success of Bad Boys for Life to secure themselves a number of high profile gigs as they continue to establish themselves as two of the industry’s fastest-rising young directorial talents, with Fallah the older of the two at just 35 years of age.
The duo have been attached to Netflix’s Beverly Hills Cop 4 since long before they reinvented another buddy franchise, but the Eddie Murphy sequel recently took a huge step towards production by securing California tax credits. They also helmed two episodes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Disney Plus series Ms. Marvel, and are putting the finishing touches on coming-of-age drama Rebel.
Based on how quickly pre-production has been ramping up, next up for El Arbi and Fallah looks to be HBO Max’s Batgirl, which recently cast Leslie Grace as Barbara Gordon and entered talks with J.K. Simmons to return as Gotham City’s Police Commissioner, which would in turn tie the movie directly to the SnyderVerse.
El Arbi took to social media to share a teaser image of the script from Birds of Prey and The Flash writer Christina Hodson, which would indicate that Batgirl is in the finally stages of gearing up to shoot, and you can check it out below.
The directors may only have a quartet of features under their belt, with Bad Boys for Life their first time tackling a recognizable IP, but they’ve always shown a strong grasp on plot and character. Now that they’ve got the big budget action-driven experience to back it up, Batgirl is shaping up to be a worthwhile addition to DCEU canon.