5 Reasons Why Joss Whedon Shouldn't Direct Batgirl

4. There Are Tonnes Of Better Choices

Punisher War Zone Lexi Alexander
Lionsgate

While there's no debating Whedon's directorial acumen, with hit after hit to his name on both the big and small screens alike, it's a fact that there are better choices out there to helm a Batgirl flick.

Wonder Woman turned out to be the superhero event of 2017, not just because it was fantastic in and of itself, but also because it heralded something of an on-screen revolution. It was led by women from top to bottom, with Gal Gadot turning in a fantastic performance as DC's most famous Amazon, and Patty Jenkins orchestrating a fantastic tale all around in the director's chair.

What the film did, apart from prove what everyone had already been saying from years until then (that women-led features can be successful), was provide the medium with a truly salient piece of work. Fans had been waiting on a women-led superhero film for years, so to have one masterminded by both a female director and backroom staff gave Wonder Woman a real sense of importance going forward.

It's a fact that's makes Whedon's attachment to Batgirl feel like a major anticlimax, particularly when you consider the breadth of female filmmakers working in Hollywood right now. Lexi Alexander is but one of the names one could option to do Batgirl better than Whedon (with Punisher: War Zone, among other projects, to her name), but there are plenty of others out there too who could take on the character, if only they were given the opportunity.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.