Jeffrey Wright has hit out at the “racist and stupid” response to his casting as Commissioner Gordon for The Batman 2.
In an interview with Collider, Wright was said to be eager to return for The Batman 2, which starts filming early next year for a 2027 release, but expressed frustration at the backlash to the casting of a Black man in the long-running role of Jim Gordon.
“I really find it fascinating the ways in which there’s such a conversation, and I think even more of a conversation now, about Black characters in these roles,” he said.
“It’s just so f***ing racist and stupid. It’s just so blind in a way that I find revealing to not recognize that the evolution of these films reflects the evolution of society, that somehow it’s defiling this franchise not to keep it grounded in the cultural reality of 1939 when the comic books were first published. It’s just the dumbest thing. It’s absent all logic.”
Wright was vocal at the time of the backlash, when his casting as Gordon was announced for Matt Reeves’ 2022 film. However, according to Collider, he remains frustrated at the ongoing conversation around the role.
“What I love about our Batman is how gritty and granular and accessible it is,” he said. “Ours is a Gotham that’s born out of ‘70s noir in terms of its cinematic aesthetic — ‘70s noir New York.
“Obviously, New York City is the template for Gotham, and if you look around New York City in the ‘70s, or if you look around New York City, of course, today, it’s a multicultural place. So, any Gotham within a contemporary film in the Batman series that’s going to be authentic has to be reflective of a modern American metropolis. That’s just what it is.”
Wright went on to point to the original creators of Batman, Bob Kane and Bill Finger, who were “two Jewish guys up in the Bronx, imagining heroes and villains in a city that looked like the city around them at the time, but I think what they imagined was open-ended. I think that the success and the longevity of these stories and characters are owing to the openness of their imaginations and what they created.”
Clearly, Wright is invested in the character of Gordon, and we’ll see him reprise the role in The Batman 2. “I feel that I own these stories as much as anyone,” he said. “Perhaps now, because I’m a part of them, I have the most skin in the game.”
The Batman 2 currently has an Oct 1, 2027 release date. Reeves has said he set out to make a trilogy of Batman films, and as of last year that plan was still on, but given how long it’s taken to get The Batman 2 going (if it does come out in October 2027, it’ll arrive five-and-a-half years after The Batman), the idea of The Batman 3 following in a timely fashion feels unlikely.
Meanwhile, James Gunn has his own plans for the DC Universe’s Batman, who he has insisted won’t be played by Matt Reeves’ Batman actor, Robert Pattinson. While promoting the rebooted DCU kickstarter Superman earlier this year, Gunn admitted: “Batman’s my biggest issue in all of DC right now.”
Photo by Ian West/PA Images via Getty Images.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
