It’s been a long time coming, but the Batgirl movie is finally becoming a reality, and will go down in the history books as the first installment in the DCEU to be released exclusively on HBO Max. Of course, there’s no guarantees that it’ll even be official canon, but with the multiverse incoming everything technically takes place within the same timeline in one way or another.
Joss Whedon was the first to try and crack the story, and looking at how his reputation has been torpedoed since then, it’s probably for the best that he never got Batgirl off the ground. Birds of Prey and The Flash writer Christina Hodson penned the script, continuing to establish herself as one of the franchise’s go-to scribes, with directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah making the surprising choice to jump straight from the smash hit Bad Boys for Life into a superhero streaming story.
After beating out contenders that included Isabela Merced, Zoey Deutch and Haley Lu Richardson, In the Heights star Leslie Grace was hired to play the title heroine, in what will be just her second feature film appearance. New fan art from Arkin Tyagi has now imagined how the actress could look in a comic-accurate costume, which you can check out below.
Having spent years mired in development hell, Batgirl has exploded into life in the last few months, and a reported plot leak could even offer some potential details as to where the story is heading. Production is expected to kick off before the end of the year with an eye to debuting the HBO Max comic book blockbuster either in late 2022 or early 2023, and you’d expect it to come packed with franchise potential.