When it was announced that actor JK Simmons would be taking on the role of Commissioner Gordon for Zack Snyder’s Justice League, comic book fans were stoked. Having already made his mark on the world of Marvel Comics with the iconic portrayal of J. Jonah Jameson in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man he would finally have the change to shine for the distinguished competition. We know now, Snyder’s eventual departure lead to a minimal amount of Simmons in the movie and eventually no further appearances by him in the DCEU (well, not yet at least). As fans might have expected, there was a plan before and now Simmons has spilled some of the beans on that.
Videos by ComicBook.com
“When I first signed up to do Justice League, it was a three-picture deal,” Simmons revealed to podcast host Josh Horowitz on Happy Sad Confused (H/T Heroic Hollywood). “The intent was, at that time, that those actors were going to keep playing those iconic superheroes and there would be something for me to do in a couple more movies. As is often the case, that didn’t come to fruition for a variety of reasons.” We can almost certainly guess that Simmons was referring to eventual appearances in Ben Affleck’s solo Batman movies, having an established past with that version of the Dark Knight in Justice League, and perhaps even appearances in Snyder’s planned Justice League follow-ups.
That’s the bad news of it all frankly, but the good news is that Simmons isn’t done with the part. It was previously confirmed that Simmons would return to the role for the upcoming Batgirl movie, a DC Comics feature that’s in the works as an HBO Max original.
“I was completely flabbergasted that they came back to me recently and wanted to have me be Commissioner Gordon again, and have it be a more significant role,” Simmons further revealed. “Leslie Grace is Batgirl and I think I’m actually going to get on the horn with her and the director in the next couple of days and do a little preliminary rehearsals on it. A couple of months from now — well, they start very soon and then I jump on board sometime in January over in Glasgow, which is a wonderful place to be shooting it because it’s gothic. I’m excited to be the once and future Jim Gordon.”
Grace herself, the titular hero, previously told Entertainment Tonight she was “freaking out” about Simmons playing her on-screen dad.
Batgirl is expected to premiere on HBO Max sometime in 2022.
