In unexpected news today, everyone’s favourite badass JK Simmons has signed on as Batman’s police liaison Commissioner Gordon for Justice League: Part One (and presumably Part Two). It’s a very savvy piece of casting to replace Gary Oldman from the critically acclaimed Dark Knight series with an Academy Award-winner, in the same way as Jared Leto was selected for the Joker.
The caliber of talent flooding these films is ridiculous.
The reason this is so shocking is it was a very real possibility than the new Sony/Marvel Spider-Man reboot would ask Simmons to reprise his role as J Jonah Jameson from the Sam Raimi series. His role was iconic and revered, and the onus is now on Marvel to cast somebody equally as spectacular to fill his shoes.
Is there a possibility he could do both? Perhaps.
Marvel/DC crossovers are not unheard of.
On the big screen, Ben Affleck famously went from poor Daredevil to revered Batman. Further back, Tommy Jee Jones went from camp 80s Batman villian Two-Face to steely army leader in Captain America: The First Avenger, and of course Marvel’s Men in Black (if that counts). Morena Baccarin was Deadpool’s girlfriend Vanessa and a constant fixture on Gotham, while Neal McDonough is leader of Captain America’s wartime squad The Howling Commandos in Captain America: The First Avenger and is currently the season four antagonist of Arrow.
These are all different periods in time though. McDonough’s Marvel character is essentially retired and nobody pays a lot of attention to Gotham. The closest thing to the companies “sharing” an actor is Ryan Reynolds, who went from X:Men Origins: Wolverine to Green Lantern and back to Deadpool. But even that doesn’t really constitute the same grounds that JK Simmons would be hypothetically treading.
Simmons as Commissioner Gordon AND J Jonah Jameson? We can dream!
