Although it's difficult to ignore the delightful high-school-graduation-photos energy that the setting provides, the photo set shared by Jensen Ackles shows the actor rocking the brown leather jacket and the famous red helmet. In one picture, he's seen brandishing dual handguns crossed at chest level, as if he already knows what his movie posters will look like.
Ackles' cosplay post received over 1 million likes and enough comments to fill an entire novel, if readers were comfortable reading a novel that was mostly written with fire emojis, anyway. One such commenter, @sulis_gemini57, said, "DC you should make this a reality!! Live-action Red Hood with Jensen Ackles [insert excessive fire emoji usage here]."
Notably, although he's yet to actually portray the Red Hood in a live-action project, Ackles can be heard voicing him in the 2010 animated film, "Batman: Under The Red Hood." That being said, rumors are brewing that his luck might eventually change. In early 2022, while on Michael Rosenbaum's "Inside of You" podcast, Ackles announced that he was developing a secret DC project with Warner Brothers (via Movie Web).
However, the actor refused to offer any substantive details beyond that, only saying, "I'm not going to talk about it because [I] don't want to jinx it." Some online sources, like The Illuminerdi, have speculated this could mean that Ackles actually stands a shot at his dream role. Should that be the case, he will be the second actor to do so, as actor Curran Walters has already donned the title in HBO Max's "Titans."
Luckily, even if Ackles never winds up portraying the Red Hood in a live-action production, he and his biggest fans will always have these great costume photos to fall back on.
