The status of Barbara Gordon in the DCEU has become one of the most hotly contested issues among the franchise's fans, and among Warner Bros. executives too. Joss Whedon was originally brought on to do a Batgirl adaptation (a move that drew plenty of criticism), but news has stagnated since his departure a few months back.
Irrespective of whether or not the film is moving ahead, Barbara Gordon is bound to appear in Birds of Prey. She's the team's leader after all, and although it would make sense for her to play the character during her Batgirl days, fans are keen that her time spent as Oracle, where she was wheelchair bound and became a key disabled icon of the medium, is considered for the film.
In either scenario, Evan Rachel Wood is an obvious choice for the character. She's gone from strength to strength in Westworld, and with more cinematic appearances in the pipeline, it's only a matter of time before the superhero genre comes knocking.
For DC's sake (and for fans of Batgirl), here's hoping it's with DC.
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.
