Christina Hodson has been announced as the writer for The Brave and the Bold, the upcoming Batman movie that will focus on Bruce Wayne and Damian Wayne. And yeah, I’ve seen the reactions. A lot of people immediately pointed to The Flash and Birds of Prey and decided this was a disaster waiting to happen. I get the concern, but I don’t think it’s as doom-and-gloom as some people are making it out to be.

First, we have to be honest about what those DC movies were dealing with at the time. That era of DC was messy. Constant leadership changes, rewrites, shifting plans, and studio interference were the norm. Those movies were never the product of one person’s vision, and it’s not really fair to judge a writer’s ability solely on how those films turned out.

What gets lost in these conversations is that Christina Hodson didn’t just fall into big franchise work. She had multiple original scripts appear on the Black List earlier in her career. If you’re not familiar, the Black List is basically a yearly list of unproduced scripts that a lot of people in Hollywood really liked. It’s more about the writing itself than the final movie, and getting on it is actually kind of a big deal.

A lot of really solid films started out on the Black List, including Argo and Juno. So when someone has been recognized there, it usually means the talent is there, even if the final studio movie doesn’t fully reflect it.

The Brave and the Bold also feels like a very different kind of project. A Batman story about being a father to Damian isn’t just about action or spectacle. It’s about control, legacy, and complicated relationships, which is where strong writing actually matters the most.

I’m not saying everyone has to be thrilled. Skepticism is fair. But writing this off completely before we’ve seen anything feels premature. For now, I’m choosing cautious optimism and waiting to see what this version of the story looks like.

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