As a Marvel movie veteran, we have no doubt that JK Simmons is going to kill it as Commissioner Gordon in the upcoming HBO Max movie Batgirl.
Although Simmons and the character have already been introduced to the DCEU, with Gordon showing up in both the Whedon and Snyder cuts of Justice League, his role so far has been limited — but according to the man itself, that’s all going to change in Batgirl. In Batgirl, they’re moving closer to the original comic story than the character’s last big screen outing in the ’90s, with the vigilante’s day-to-day identity being none other than Barbara Gordon: the daughter of the staunch and form police chief.
Naturally, this conflict and link to the main character will give Simmons a lot more to do than he has done so far — which is something he also hinted at in a recent interview with Discussing Film. “It’s much more than I got to do in my brief stint as Commissioner Gordon in Zack Snyder’s film,” he said. “And really, it was fun because it was a completely different side of Commissioner Gordon.”
He continued, “All that we saw in the little snippets of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, in either the original or in Zack’s brilliant, expanded cut, it was just Commissioner Gordon being business-like and needing Batman’s help. In this film, I think I’m allowed to say since it does centre on Batgirl, we see much more of Commissioner Gordon at home.”
Although the plot for Batgirl, which has musical movie star Leslie Grace as the titular character, has been kept largely under wraps so far, on-set photos have shown Simmons filming with a younger girl sharing Grace’s likeness. This suggests that the action movie will be including a flashback scene or two for the father-daughter duo, and may well help bring a lot more depth to not just Barbara Gordon, but her father, too.
Batgirl is scheduled to be released on streaming service HBO Max sometime this year.