BRENDAN FRASER has been cast in DC’s upcoming “Batgirl” movie. He will play the villainous Firefly, a sociopath with a passion for pyrotechnics, opposite star Leslie Grace.

    Specific plot details for “Batgirl” have been kept under wraps, though it centers on Barbara Gordon, the daughter of Gotham police commissioner Jim Gordon. J.K. Simmons is returning to portray Jim Gordon after first playing the character in Zack Snyder’s “Justice League.”

    “Bad Boys for Life” filmmakers Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah will direct “Batgirl” for Warner Bros. Christina Hodson (“Bumblebee,” “The Flash”) is writing the screenplay.

    “Batgirl” is set to premiere on HBO Max, the streaming service backed by WarnerMedia, sometime in 2022. The project is notable because it marks one of the first major DC Comics properties to skip theaters in favor of streaming. Plus, it’s one of the studio’s rare comic book adventures — following “Wonder Woman” and its sequel, as well as Margot Robbie’s “Birds of Prey” — to spotlight a female superhero.

    “Batgirl” isn’t Fraser’s first foray into the DC universe; he currently voices a character on the HBO Max superhero TV show “Doom Patrol.” It does, however, continues a career resurgence for the “George of the Jungle” and “The Mummy” star, who all but disappeared from Hollywood in the mid-2000s. He’s since emerged in Steven Soderbergh’s crime drama “No Sudden Move” and Danny Boyle’s “Trust” on FX. Fraser recently landed the lead role in Darren Aronofsky’s next film “The Whale,” an adaptation of Samuel D. Hunter’s play about 600-pound middle-aged recluse, and he will be seen in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro.

    (SD-Agencies)