Hot on the heels of Empire's impressive insight into The Dark Knight Rises earlier this week, a potentially juicy rumour emerged suggesting that Christopher Nolan had secretly extended his Inception reunion by casting Ellen Page (X-Men: The Last Stand, Juno, Super) as Barbara Gordon, daughter of Gotham's Police Commissioner Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman). Immediately, it seemed pretty implausible that a) Nolan could have covered up Page's involvement, and b) Nolan would have chosen to cover up Page's involvement, especially with fellow Inception stars Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt all announced as joining the franchise for its concluding installment. Needless to say, the rumour was shot down when the accompanying image was quickly confirmed as a fake, but that's certainly not to say that the future Batgirl won't turn up in The Dark Knight Rises - Gordon's family briefly appeared in Batman Begins and of course, were last seen at the conclusion of The Dark Knight (with Hannah Gunn portraying a young version of Barbara), so you'd have to imagine there's a strong chance they'll be back for part three, especially with Gordon enduring a spell in the hospital, as we've seen in the teaser trailer. With the recently announced eight-year gap, that would probably take Barbara to her late-teens, where'd she'd likely be a fairly street-smart Gotham girl...
Back in March it was revealed that up-and-coming actress Juno Temple (Kaboom, The Three Musketeers) had secured a supporting role in The Dark Knight Rises as "a street-smart Gotham girl", which - aside from some random Robin speculation - was widely assumed to be that of Holly Robinson, friend of Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway). However, I'm now convinced that she'll be playing Barbara Gordon and while I don't have any hard evidence, here's my argument why...
Aside from the obvious attributes (right age and so on), the majority of casting announcements on the film were accompanied some details about the character, or at the very least, a name (even down to the likes of Matthew Modine's Nixon). The ones that weren't (i.e. Josh Pence, Joey King) we now know were down to spoilers, and if Temple really is playing Holly Robinson, I seriously can't imagine that being too big of a deal in terms of the plot. On the other hand, if they'd announced her as Barbara Gordon, it would have immediately gave away Nolan's decision to play with the timeline, not to mention setting up expectations for Batgirl to make an appearance, which would likely have led to a backlash anyway. If Barbara is in the film, it's probably going to be nothing more than a small role (going to see Bruce Wayne [Christian Bale] after working out his secret identity, perhaps?), so instead she's a "street-smart Gotham girl", which is a pretty solid description of the character anyway.Oh, it would also go some way to explaining this set report, which described a sequence that was filmed earlier this month at Newark City Hall: "Lots of gunfire inside. There is some kind of press conference held, league mercs storm the place. A gun fight breaks out. Gary Oldman and Juno Temple. Gary has been walking back and forth like a boss." I can't really see why Holly Robinson would be involved in something like that (at least, not without Catwoman), but if Gordon has been taken captive, there's nothing to say that Bane and his cronies won't have taken his family along for the ride too.
Of course I could be wrong. She may turn out to be Holly Robinson, or even someone else entirely. But my money's on Barbara...
Gary Collinson
Holy Franchise, Batman! - Coming 2012.
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