“In The Heights” breakout Leslie Grace has been cast in the titular role for “Batgirl”, the upcoming HBO Max superhero film.
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The DC movie will feature Grace as Barbra Gordon aka Batgirl, who is the daughter of Gotham City police commissioner James Gordon.
Christina Hodson, who wrote “Bumblebee” and Warner Bros’ “Birds of Prey” and “The Flash”, has penned the script for the HBO Max project, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, best known for helming Will Smith and Martin Lawrence-starrer “Bad Boys for Life”, will direct.
Barbra Gordon is the most established version of the Batgirl character, who was initially introduced in 1961 as Betty Kane.
But the character, played by Yuonne Craig, was revamped in 1967 when television executives wanted to attract a female audience to the Batman TV series.
Batgirl’s last live-action big-screen appearance was with Alicia Silverstone in Joel Schumacher’s 1997 movie “Batman & Robin”.
Grace, who is Dominican-American, is now the third Latina to be cast in a DC superhero project, following Sasha Calle’s role as Supergirl in “The Flash” and Rachel Zegler joining the cast of “Shazam: Fury of the Gods”.
Grace recently broke out as Nina Rosario in Jon M Chu’s film adaptation of “In the Heights”, based on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony Award-winning musical.
She is also known as a singer and has recorded songs, including “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”, “Be My Baby” and “Day 1”. She has received three Latin Grammy Award nominations.
