The Directors We Want For the Batgirl Movie

Joss Whedon has stepped away from the Batgirl movie, meaning there’s an opening for a director to help lead DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. into what will hopefully be a more diverse, inclusive era.

DC and WB have already made strides to support more diverse directors behind-the-scenes, putting Patty Jenkins in charge of Wonder Woman. Here are a few suggestions for who they might hire to continue the trend with Batgirl…

Lexi Alexander

Lexi Alexander is no stranger to the superhero world. She has directed episodes of Arrow and Supergirl for The CW, as well as helmed feature films like Punisher: War Zone and Green Street Hooligans. With a background as a karate-point fighter and then as a stunt performer, Alexander understands the physicality of action filmmaking like no other director out there. The Palestinian-German-American filmmaker has been outspoken about the discrimination she and other female directors have encountered in Hollywood. We would love to see her get the chance to helm a Batgirl film. 

Ava DuVernay

Ava Duvernay’s A Wrinkle in Time is one of the most highly-anticipated movies of 2018, and it’s not hard to understand why. Not only are the visuals we’ve seen in the trailers mindblowing and original, but DuVernay is an Oscar-nominated director who has proven herself a talented, versatile filmmaker with movies like Selma, the documentary 13th, and her TV series Queen Sugar. DuVernay would make a great Batgirl director, but with whispers of a possible Star Wars gig in her future, it’s unclear if the already busy director would be available for the job.

Karyn Kusama

Girlfight. Aeon Flux. Jennifer’s Body. Karyn Kusama has been making badass, female-centric movies for a while now, starting with Girlfight, which she wrote and directed at the age of 27. Batgirl would be a logical next step for this director who has already demonstrated, with Aeon Flux, that she knows how to handle a bigger budget film.

Rachel Talalay

We’ve been trying to get Rachel Talalay a Star Wars for a while now, but, in the mean time, we’d settle for Talalay helming the Batgirl movie. A veteran TV director who has shot episodes of The Flash, Supergirl, and Legends of Tomorrow (not to mention what may be the best episode of Doctor Who ever, and a Sherlock episode to boot), Talalay knows how to craft an exciting, emotionally-satisfying visual narrative. Give her all of the movies, please.

Kathryn Bigelow

Like most people on this list, Kathryn Bigelow is one of those insanely-overqualified directors who would have the choice of any movie in the industry… if she were a man. The Oscar-winning director of The Hurt Locker, as well as films like Point Break, Zero Dark Thirty, and Detroit, Bigelow has proven that she can do any kind of movie she sets her lens on. Would she consider something like Batgirl? 

Dee Rees

Dee Rees just got an Oscar nom for her screenwriting work on Mudbound, but she’s a killer director, too. Not only did she direct the post-WWII drama about two men, one white and one black, who return to rural Mississippi following the war, but she has stretched her genre muscles with a turn on the Phillip K. Dick anthology series Electric Dreams, as well as episodes of Empire and the docudrama series When We Rise. DC and WB would be lucky to have her.

Reed Morano

Reed Morano garnered some serious attention for The Handmaid’s Tale where her work on the first three episodes sets the visual tone for the entire series. Morano has already met with Kathleen Kennedy, prompting many to suspect she will behind the camera for an upcoming Star Wars film. But maybe she can fit Batgirl into her schedule, as well?

Angela Robinson

Angela Robinson directed superhero-adjacent film Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, which should have gotten a much more receptive welcome than it did. Having previously done work on TV shows like The L Word, Hung, and Charlie’s Angels, Robinson has cut her teeth on both the big and small screen. We’d like to see her be given an opportunity to go even bigger with a movie like Batgirl.

Michelle MacLaren

Michelle MacLaren has helmed episodes of every TV show from Game of Thrones and Westworld to The X-Files and Breaking Bad. She’s one of those filmmakers and producers who knows her way around the industry, and who knows how to tell an effective story within a budget across networks and genres. MacLaren was originally attached to direct Wonder Woman before leaving over “creative differences.” Hopefully, those creative differences were not dealbreakers because we’d love to see MacLaren helm Batgirl.