Batgirl: J.K. Simmons says Commissioner Gordon will have a more significant role

We didn’t get nearly enough of J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon in Justice League for my liking, but it seems as though he’s ready to take on a bigger role in Batgirl. Simmons had signed on to play Gotham’s finest with the assumption that he’d also appear in Ben Affleck’s Batman movie and further movies, but as the DCEU took a new direction following the exit of Zack Snyder, those plans went up in smoke.

It was revealed earlier this summer that J.K. Simmons was in talks to reprise his role as Commissioner Gordon in Warner Bros.’ upcoming Batgirl movie, and the actor told Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that he’ll have a more significant role to play in the movie.

I was completely flabbergasted they came back to me recently and wanted to have me be Commissioner Gordon again and have it be a more significant role… I’m looking forward to it. I think I’m going to get on the horn to [Leslie Grace] and the directors in the next couple of days and do a little preliminary rehearsals on it. They start very soon and I jump on board sometime in January over in Glasgow, which is a wonderful place to be shooting it as it’s Gothic.

Simmons continued, “I’m excited to be the once and future Jim Gordon. I had a long discussion with the guys about how we want to portray him… It’s a really interesting take on introducing Batgirl and fleshing Jim Gordon out.” Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the directors behind Bad Boys for Life, are set to helm Batgirl movie which has been penned by Birds of Prey screenwriter Christina Hodson and will debut on HBO Max. Leslie Grace is set to play Batgirl and it was announced in October that Brendan Fraser had signed on to play the main villain. The directors have also teased that Batman will appear in the film, but specify which version of Batman that would be.