Zack Snyder explains his scrapped plans for Batgirl in the DCEU

Batgirl in The New Batman Adventures
(Image credit: Warner Bros.)

Zack Snyder has revealed his plans for a now-scrapped movie about Batgirl – real name Barbara Gordon – in the DCEU.

"I always wanted Barbara Gordon to come in the movies," he told Esquire. "Commissioner Gordon would be on the way out, and we'd have Barbara starting to play a bigger role."

The director has already spoken about his intentions for what would happen after Zack Snyder's Justice League. The next installments (there would have been two more Justice League movies) would have involved the Knightmare timeline – the apocalyptic, worst-case-scenario future where Darkseid has succeeded in conquering Earth, and Superman has succumbed to his mind control via the Anti-Life Equation. Superman would fall because Batman failed to save Lois from death – which would later mean that Batman needs to go back in time, with some help from The Flash, and sacrifice himself to save both Lois and the world. After that, Lois and Superman's son, named Bruce, would become the next Batman.

"My idea was that after Batman sacrificed himself, there would be a window where there was no Batman, and I thought Barbara could fill that until the child of Superman and Lois, who has no powers, would become Batman when he was of age," Snyder explained.

He added: "That was the idea anyway. It just seemed to make sense. Then, of course, Barbara could have been his mentor, but who knows? That's all just... see now we're just wishful thinking."

WarnerMedia Studios CEO Ann Sarnoff has poured water over fans' hopes for a continuation to Snyder's DCEU films, telling Variety: "I appreciate that they love Zack's work and we are very thankful for his many contributions to DC. We're just so happy that he could bring his cut of the Justice League to life because that wasn't in the plan until about a year ago. With that comes the completion of his trilogy. We're very happy we've done this, but we're very excited about the plans we have for all the multi-dimensional DC characters that are being developed right now."

Snyder has also been clear that he doesn’t think a sequel is likely to happen (you can read more about Snyder's plans in our Justice League 2 explainer) so we probably won't ever see Batgirl training Bruce Kent. Still, stranger things have certainly happened – like the Snyder Cut streaming on HBO Max at all.

For now, though, Zack Snyder's Justice League is out now – and if you've finished the movie, check out our deep dives into everything you could want to know about it here:

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Molly Edwards
Senior Entertainment Writer

I'm a Senior Entertainment Writer here at 12DOVE, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film and SFX sections. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English. 

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