Joss Whedon to Direct ‘Batgirl’ Standalone Movie for Warner Bros
‘Avengers’ director to jump from Marvel to DC Films
Jeremy Fuster | March 30, 2017 @ 9:47 AM
Last Updated: March 30, 2017 @ 10:19 AM
Joss Whedon is about to jump from Marvel to DC as he nears a deal to direct a “Batgirl” standalone film for Warner Bros., TheWrap has learned.
Toby Emmerich, president and chief content officer of Warner Bros. Pictures Group is overseeing the studio’s DC Films title with Jon Berg and Geoff Johns.
Whedon’s move would be a big shakeup for the comic book movie world, having served as a core creative force behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe as director of “The Avengers” and its 2015 sequel, “Age of Ultron.” He also had a hand in Marvel’s expansion to television by co-creating the ABC series “Agents of SHIELD” in 2013.
Batgirl made her debut in the Batman mythos fifty years ago as Barbara Gordon, the daughter of Gotham City Police Commissioner Jim Gordon. Since then she has become one of the most popular superheroines in the world. When Barbara Gordon was paralyzed by a gunshot from the Joker in the controversial classic graphic novel “The Killing Joke,” other crimefighters, like The Huntress and Orphan, took up the Batgirl name while Barbara became Oracle, a tech-savvy aide to Batman. Barbara later returned to the Batgirl role, while her assault in “The Killing Joke” was retconned.
Warner Bros. slate for the DC Extended Universe includes “Wonder Woman” and “Justice League,” which have respective release dates of June 2 and Nov. 17, and the Jason Momoa-led “Aquaman,” due out in December 2018.
DC’s development list includes sequel to last year’s “Suicide Squad” as well as an adaptation of “Gotham City Sirens” that will star Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. A solo “Batman” film is also planned for 2019, with Matt Reeves (“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”) signed on to direct.
Variety first reported this news.
12 Worst Parts of New 'Justice League' Trailer (Photos)
Millions of people woke up on Saturday morning to a new trailer for the "Justice League" movie and, if you're anything like us, you were totally baffled by it. Here are the absolute worst parts of the trailer -- though if you're looking for Aquaman-bashing here, best look elsewhere.
If there's one thing everyone complained about "Batman v Superman" not having enough of, it was pointlessly indulgent and nonsensical displays of light and color. Good thing Zack Snyder is bringing them back for "Justice League"!
In case you were wondering, Lois Lane is in this movie. I would guess they tossed in this random shot because they needed to remind everyone that there could be some redeemable aspect of this movie. Poor Amy Adams.
Here's The Flash battling an alien wearing a Nazi uniform in a really oddly composed and claustrophobic shot. Were they afraid of pulling the camera back?
Likewise, we get to see Batman take down an alien bug in a shot that's weirdly small scale for a movie like this.
Every action shot in this trailer looks bizarrely small scale, aside from this ultra-wide battle shot that was seemingly ripped straight from the prologue of "The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring."
Did "Aquaman" director James Wan helm this scene? That's the only explanation I can think of for why it looks like it came from another "Insidious" sequel.
It's no surprise that a "Justice League" movie would involve a glacier somehow, given Superman's propensity for hanging out in them. That said, Superman is not in this trailer, and this shot was inserted seemingly at random because at no point do we see the glacier aside from this half-second shot.
Here we see the Justice League preparing to do battle inside what appears to be the throat of a Xenomorph from the "Alien" movies. No explanation is given in the trailer for this decidedly ungrounded setting.
Football may be America's game, but in this trailer all this shot does is remind fans that this long-awaited superhero team-up movie is also saddled with the extra baggage of being the origin movie for Cyborg for some odd reason.
Oh wait, it's actually two origin movies, as this shot of The Flash visiting Billy Crudup in jail reminds us.
It's not hard to imagine Snyder's directions on this shot: "OK, so you gotta grab the bat shuriken out of the air, but, like, in a cool and stylish way that makes no sense."
I love this part of the trailer where it shows the four non-Batman leads doing a photo shoot for the "Justice League" character posters.
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Warner Bros. released a new trailer for the DC teamup movie “Justice League” on Saturday — and everybody did not have a good time
Millions of people woke up on Saturday morning to a new trailer for the "Justice League" movie and, if you're anything like us, you were totally baffled by it. Here are the absolute worst parts of the trailer -- though if you're looking for Aquaman-bashing here, best look elsewhere.
