It’s now official: Batgirl has its Firefly. Brendan Fraser has joined Warner Bros. & DC Films’ upcoming superhero offering as the Gotham City supervillain. He is starring opposite In The Heights breakout Leslie Grace, who will star as Barbara Gordon.
Directed by Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah (Bad Boys For Life) from a script by Birds of Prey and The Flash screenwriter Christina Hodson, Batgirl will also star J. K. Simmons, reprising his role of Commissioner Gordon, and Bad Boys for Life’s Jacob Scipio, who joined the cast last week in an unknown role.
In the comics, Firefly, real name Garfield Lynns, is a member of Batman’s iconic rogues gallery known to be a sociopathic pyromaniac with an obsessive compulsion to start fires. The character, alongside Killer Moth, was the antagonist of Scott Beatty and Chuck Dixon’s acclaimed 2003 miniseries Batgirl: Year One, which helped define modern Barbara Gordon for future generations. Firefly appeared in live-action before, played by Andrew Dunbar in The CW’s Arrow and in a different iteration of the character named Bridgit Pike in Fox’s Gotham, played by Michelle Veintimilla and Camila Perez.
While news of Fraser’s casting in the film was first broke by Deadline’s Justin Kroll, THR’s Borys Kit elaborated on it and initially said the Mummy star was playing Carmine Falcone in the film; he later corrected himself and said he was “definitely” playing Firefly. This might, in addition, mean that Falcone is also featured in the film.
Kit also shared that Sylvester Stallone had the studio’s first offer for the part but things didn’t work out; he additionally revealed details on another key role in the film (perhaps Scipio’s), which further intensify the possibility of Falcone showing up: “the son of the gangster/villain, who becomes romantically linked to…well, you can take it from there.”
Batgirl is prepping for a November shoot in Glasgow, Scotland, and will debut exclusively on HBO Max sometime in 2022.