Race-swapping, gender-swapping, and sex-swapping is all the rage right now in Hollywood. If a character was a popular straight, white male hero in an original outing, he’s likely either going to be gender-swapped to a woman, sex-swapped to a gay man, or in the case of Commissioner Jim Gordon from DC’s Batman series, race-swapped to a POC.

The Hollywood Reporter has published a piece stating that Matt Reeves’ is in negotiations to have Jeffrey Wright play Commissioner Jim Gordon in the upcoming film, The Batman.

The news is brief but relevant, with THR reporting…

“Westworld star Jeffrey Wright is in negotiations to play Commissioner Gordon, the classic ally to the Dark Knight, in Matt Reeves’ The Batman. Robert Pattinson is headlining what is being planned as a grounded take on as the DC Comics crime-fighter. Casting is in the early stages for a who’s who of Batman’s rogue gallery. “

The most common response would be “Maybe it’s fake news!” and you might be right but The Hollywood Reporter is extremely reliable when it comes to exclusives and casting/production rumors. It’s rare they’re proven wrong, and usually if they break a story… it’s true.

According to Cosmic Book News, Jim Gordon won’t be the only race-swapped character in The Batman if the rumors turn out to be true that director Matt Reeves is also looking for POCkers to fulfill the roles of Catwoman and Poison Ivy.

This wouldn’t be the first time Poison Ivy was race-swapped, though. She was recently given the melanin makeover in DC Comics’ Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass, where Ivy traded in her seductive red locks for an unkempt afro.

The race-swapping isn’t just a DC thing. Plenty of Marvel characters have also been race-swapped or gender-swapped, especially for many of their upcoming films. A perfect example is all the race/gender-sex swaps they committed in The Eternals, where almost all the white males were replaced with women or POCkers. They even turned one of the male characters gay.

So far there are no reports about whether Jim Gordon will be gay or not. Some people would instantly think that this disrupts the lore given that it would mean a gay Jim Gordon couldn’t have Barbara – who eventually becomes Batgirl – but they would likely just make him adopt her if they did turn him gay. Alternatively, if he’s not gay, this automatically means that if they introduce Batgirl she, too, will also be a POC.

Matt Reeves’ The Batman is scheduled to hit theaters on June 25th, 2021.

(Thanks for the news tip LowLevelWannabe)