Updated: Mariah Carey to Play Gotham City Mayor in THE LEGO BATMAN Movie
Update: Borys Kit from The Hollywood Reporter says Carey will actually be playing the mayor of Gotham City, not Commissioner Gordon as Deadline originally reported. Bummer. That makes things considerably less interesting. Oh well. Original article follows.
If that headline [formerly "Mariah Carey to Play Commissioner Gordon in THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE...Wait, What?"] has you scratching your head, you aren't the only one. Deadline reports that Warner Bros. is in talks with Mariah Carey to provide the voice for Commissioner Gordon in The LEGO Batman Movie. No word on whether she'll sing in the film or not, but it seems unlikely that they'd cast her just for her speaking voice alone; this could be one of the most interesting interpretations of a Batman character in history.
Carey has acted before, notably in Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, Lee Daniels' The Butler, and Glitter, and according to her IMDb, she's done some voice acting on a couple episodes of American Dad. If her deal goes through, Carey will join Will Arnett (Batman), Ralph Fiennes (Alfred), Michael Cera (Robin), Rosario Dawson (Batgirl), and Zach Galifianakis (The Joker) in the spin-off of the terrific 2014 film The LEGO Movie. Chris McKay (Robot Chicken, The LEGO Movie) is directing the spin-off from a script by Seth Grahame-Smith.
No more information has been provided (or uncovered) about this yet, but it seems a little strange that they'd cast Rosario Dawson as Batgirl/Barbara Gordon and then cast Carey as...her father? That's odd, isn't it? Even with the proliferation of gender-swapping projects flying around these days, this is a batty decision. (Pun most definitely intended.) I'm curious to see how it plays out, and we'll find out when The LEGO Batman Movie swoops into theaters on February 10th, 2017.