Joss Whedon Starting Work on Batgirl Next Year

Joss Whedon is expected to begin working on the Batgirl movie next year, says DC chief. Warner Bros. officially launched the DC Extended Universe last year with Zack Snyder's Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, and then followed that film with David Ayer's Suicide Squad and Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman. The next movie on the docket is Snyder's highly anticipated team-up movie, Justice League, which unites the world's finest heroes -- Superman (Henry Cavill), Batman (Ben Affleck), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), The Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) -- against Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) and his Parademon army.

At first, it looked like the studio was taking their time with their original lineup, releasing one or two movies per year for the foreseeable future, and while that hasn't necessarily changed, they have also announced or have been rumored to be working on at least a dozen other DCEU movies, some of which already have filmmakers on board, such as David Ayer's Gotham City Sirens, Chris McKay's Nightwing, Matt Reeves' The Batman, and of course, Joss Whedon's Batgirl. As for the other movies, some of them have actors attached to the projects, such as Dwayne Johnson playing Black Adam, though there haven't been any official announcements regarding the productions yet.

Warners clearly has several DCEU movies in various stages of development, and the next two movies to hit the big screen are James Wan's Aquaman and David F. Sandberg's Shazam! It's a mystery as to what comes after that, though it sounds like one of the movies that may release soon is Whedon's Batgirl. DC chief Geoff Johns has been busy promoting both the DC Universe and the DCEU at San Diego Comic-Con this week, and in a recent interview with IGN Live, he said that Whedon will begin working on the Batgirl movie in 2018.

"But for Batman what I will say is that Batman is more than just Batman and, you know, it's been way too long since we've seen, you know, an expansion of that universe, and Batgirl - we are doing Batgirl with Joss Whedon, it's going to be super exciting. He's going to start that next year, and that's just the start."

While this is certainly great news for fans of the character and the director (who recently took over helming the Justice League reshoots following Snyder's temporary exit), it also exacerbates the concerns that the studio is focused more on building an extended Batman universe -- with movies like Harley Quinn vs. The Joker coming out of left field -- rather than developing all the other DC Comics superheroes that are awaiting their own films, such as the Scarlet Speedster. The Flash movie appears to be stuck in development hell, with multiple directors having dropped the project over the past year or so, and it's currently without a set release date, despite originally being confirmed for spring 2018.

Aside from Aquaman and Shazam!, both of which seem to be on track for their scheduled release dates, Warners has currently slated Cyborg and Green Lantern Corps as their next movies for 2020, meaning they should go into production within the next year or so if the studio plans on keeping them in those slots. Seeing as Warner Bros. is expected to confirm their DCEU slate following the release of Justice League this fall, hopefully, we get some answers as to which movies are coming soon and which aren't. In regards to Whedon's film, since the studio recently slated two unannounced DCEU movies for 2020, it's possible, though unlikely, that one of those dates has been carved out for Batgirl. We'll just have to wait and see.