'Batgirl' Actresses Testing For Lead Role This Week – Here's Who Could Don The Cape And Cowl

Warner Bros. has never known exactly what to do with the Barbra Gordon character in its live-action Batman movies. Alicia Silverstone's leather jacket-clad iteration from Batman & Robin didn't make the splash the studio was hoping for, but nearly 25 years later, WB is finally ready to put this character in the spotlight with a solo Batgirl movie.

No one has been cast in the upcoming film quite yet, but studio executives are evidently expecting to test a group of performers for the lead role this week, and a few names are being reported as potential contenders. Let's break them down one by one.

Deadline reports that Merced is "expected to test" for the part. You may recognize Merced from her starring turn in Dora and the Lost City of Gold or when she played the young female lead in Transformers: The Last Knight. Since then, she starred in the Netflix movie Let It Snow and lent her voice to a character in Spirit: Untamed.

Deutch starred in Richard Linklater's college baseball hangout movie Everybody Want Some!!, the time-loop mystery Before I Fall, Ruben Fleischer's long-gestating sequel Zombieland: Double Tap, and in Claire Scanlon's delightful Set It Up, where Deutch instantly established herself as someone who can operate within the rom-com genre at an extremely high level.

Grace's first film role was as Nina in Warner Bros.' musical In the Heights, in which she memorably danced on the side of a building with Corey Hawkins. Her existing relationship with the studio on that film might be key in potentially locking down this part.

Richardson is one of the most talented and versatile performers of her generation, doing excellent work in The Edge of Seventeen, Columbus, Support the Girls, and the woefully under-the-radar HBO Max comedy Unpregnant.

While Deadline says Richardson "might have bowed out before the test process," The Wrap reports that not only has Richardson not bowed out, but that she and Leslie Grace are currently the top two contenders for the starring role.

Warner Bros. has decided to make this movie directly for HBO Max streaming service instead of theaters, but the movie landscape is in such a state of flux right now that it's hard to say if that decision will hold by the time this eventually gets released. Christina Hodson, who wrote Birds of Prey and the upcoming The Flash film for DC, wrote the Batgirl screenplay after Joss Whedon exited the movie. Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, who directed last year's Bad Boys For Life, have been hired to direct. By the time cameras roll, they'll have served as executive producers and directors on Marvel's upcoming Disney+ series Ms. Marvel, so they'll have superhero experience before turning their full attention to Barbra Gordon's story.