‘The Batman’ director Matt Reeves recently told Entertainment Weekly that series about Gotham’s police force and Arkham Asylum was scrapped after HBO executives suggested focusing more on “major characters” from the Batman universe. Reeves is expanding the universe he launched in “The Batman” to television, starting with this fall’s “The Penguin,” with Colin Farrell reprising his role as the eponymous Gotham City gangster.
“While we were writing the movie [‘The Batman’], I was like, ‘Hey, you know what? I think there are some cool shows we could do,” Reeves said about wanting to expand his Dark Knight universe. “It was actually the reason why I wanted to close our deal at Warner Bros.”
The spinoff series “The Batman,” focused on the Gotham Police Department, was announced in July 2020 and was helmed by Reeves and “Boardwalk Empire” creator Terence Winter, who subsequently left the project in November and was replaced by Joe Barton. the Podcast ‘Happy Sad Confused’ in March 2022, it was revealed that the original plan for the Gotham PD series was to take inspiration from Sidney Lumet’s “Prince of the City” and focus the show on a corrupt Gotham cop. The series is said to be set a year before “The Batman,” as the Gotham Police Department reckons with the rise of Batman and his own internal corruption.
“It wasn’t going to be a Batman story, it was about this corrupt cop,” Reeves said at the time. “And it would be about how the worst gang in Gotham was the GCPD. And [the cop] If he were to cross paths, he would have touched paths with Gordon, who would have been too – it would have been someone to measure him against. But it would be a battle [the cop’s] soul.”
When the project failed to get off the ground, Reeves moved on to another spin-off idea based around Arkham Asylum. Antonio Campos came on board to serve as writer and showrunner of this series, but Variety reported earlier this month that plans for the show had been scrapped.
Speak with Entertainment weeklyReeves said these two ideas for spinoff series were submitted after executives at HBO offered their advice on where “The Batman” universe should go in its transition to television.
“They said, ‘We like what you’re doing, and we want to lean more into the big characters,’” Reeves said, adding that elements from the canceled Gotham PD show eventually made their way into “The Penguin.”
“What’s interesting is that the common thread of the story in the movie is that the person they’re looking for, that the Riddler is referring to, must be the Penguin, some kind of informant,” Reeves explained. “This movie creates a power vacuum, and because Penguin is so underrated, people don’t really see who he is.”
‘The Penguin’ takes place a week after the end of ‘The Batman’. Head writer and showrunner Lauren LeFranc told EW that the show is “the bridge between the two films,” referring to Reeves’ upcoming “The Batman Part II.” That sequel won’t hit theaters until 2026.
“We’re going to go almost straight into the second movie that Matt has planned,” LeFranc added.
“The Penguin” premieres on HBO on September 19 and streams on Max. The first season of the show consists of eight episodes.