Good day, and welcome to a new installment of The Monitor, WIRED’s pop culture news roundup. This week we have a lot of news about comic-book heroes (and antiheroes), ranging from Batman to Ghost Rider. Let’s get going!
Hulu Is No Longer Making a Ghost Rider Series
The streaming wars giveth, and the streaming wars taketh away. According to a report in Variety, Hulu will no longer make a live-action series based on Marvel’s Ghost Rider. The series was originally set to star Gabriel Luna as the titular antihero, but plans have changed as a result of “a creative impasse,” according to reports.
The Batman May Have Found Its Commissioner Gordon
The Batman—the latest movie featuring the Dark Knight—might have casted its Commissioner Gordon. Westworld star Jeffrey Wright is currently in talks to play the police commissioner in director Matt Reeves’ film. The movie, written by Reeves and starring Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne, is slated to hit theaters June 25, 2021. Jonah Hill is also rumored to be joining the film in a “secret role.”
Families of Aurora Shooting Victims Raise Concerns Over Joker
People close to the victims of the mass shooting at a screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado in 2012 wrote a letter to Warner Bros. earlier this week asking the studio to aid victims of gun violence in the lead-up to the release of Joker on October 4. “We are calling on you to be a part of the growing chorus of corporate leaders who understand that they have a social responsibility to keep us all safe,” the letter reads. Warner Bros. responded shortly after it went public, saying, “Our company has a long history of donating to victims of violence, including Aurora, and in recent weeks, our parent company joined other business leaders to call on policymakers to enact bipartisan legislation to address this epidemic. … Make no mistake: Neither the fictional character Joker, nor the film, is an endorsement of real-world violence of any kind. It is not the intention of the film, the filmmakers, or the studio to hold this character up as a hero.”
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