Stranger Things actor Jamie Campbell Bower wants to take a stab at another villain role, this time in the DCU.
Actor Jamie Campbell Bower has clearly been listening in on the latest surrounding the DCU’s recent overhaul and James Gunn’s huge slate of newly announced projects, all of which has kept the news circuits constantly abuzz. Per a report from CBR, Bower enthusiastically remarked in a recent interview with Geek House Show at Comfest 2023 that he wants to join the ranks of the DCU as Scarecrow, a terrific villain who is plenty popular in the comics but has seldom gotten a spotlight on the big screen aside from Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed Dark Knight trilogy.
Bower made a name for himself almost overnight in the latest season of Netflix’s science fiction phenomenon Stranger Things, where he played two very different looking villain characters that turned out to be two sides of the same coin: Eleven’s predecessor One and the Mindflayer’s “general” Vecna. One was originally born as Henry Creel, a human with psionic abilities that ends up murdering his entire family before being found and raised by Dr. Brenner. Season 4’s climax revealed that Eleven sent One to the Upside Down when she was only nine. There, painfully disfigured by the dimension’s deadly elements, he transformed into the version of himself he desired to be since childhood: Vecna. Of course Bower was unrecognizable in Vecna’s prosthetic bodysuit, but he awed audiences worldwide as both villains, and evidently he wants to stay on that villain train, this time as DC’s Scarecrow. When asked on Geek House Show about the prospect, Bower emphatically said he’d be totally on board.
“There’s been a lot of chatter about Scarecrow recently, that would be cool. To do that, that would be fun. Very spooky, that would be great!”
Scarecrow Will Finally Get Big Screen Justice, Be It Gunn or Reeves
Picturing Bower as Scarecrow would certainly not be difficult, given his well-proven acting chops. However, the classic Batman villain has yet to be confirmed for Gunn’s new film The Brave and the Bold, which has kept much of its plans underwraps and has only confirmed Damian Wayne, the son of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul, on its roster so far. In the DCU’s new sub-universe Elseworlds, however, Scarecrow has since been greenlit as a prominent villain who will likely get their own solo project alongside HBO Max’s original series The Penguin, which has Colin Farrell reprising his role as the eccentric, Scarface-esque mobster who made his debut in Matt Reeves’ The Batman (2022).
While Scarecrow is confirmed for a prominent role in Elseworlds, Reeves is currently working on both The Batman: Part II and The Penguin series in tandem, meaning that Scarecrow’s debut will not come for awhile yet. Whether it’s Gunn or Reeves that brings him to the big screen first, it’s certain that Bower will be one of the first in line for the role.
