If you liked The Batman as much as we did, then we’ve got some great news for you…
In case you didn’t know, we really liked The Batman.
So much so, we can barely stop writing about it.
If you really liked The Batman too, then we’ve got some great – SPOILER-FILLED! – news for you, as Warner Brothers and HBO are currently developing a series of spin-off shows from the movie, hoping to do for this franchise what Disney+ are currently accomplishing with their Marvel shows.
So far, there are four spin-off shows being discussed, but don’t be surprised if more and more get announced as the box office for The Batman continues to rise.
GOTHAM P.D.
This was the first spin-off show announced for the movie, and it is also the first show to be effectively pulled from HBO’s schedules.
Terence Winter (Boardwalk Empire, The Sopranos) was originally set to write the scripts for the police procedural, which was to focus on a corrupt cop in the Gotham Police Department.
The plan was for the show place before the events of The Batman, but still within the first year of Batman’s attempts to fight crime within Gotham.
Winter, however, left the project due to creative differences and was subsequently replaced by Joe Barton (The Ritual, Humans), but Deadline has since reported that HBO took issue with the protagonist being a corrupt cop, and asked The Batman director and co-writer Matt Reeves to re-aim the focus on already existing characters, i.e. Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon.
During the press tour for The Batman, Reeves then revealed that series was no longer in active pre-production, replaced instead by a show focusing on Arkham.
More on that in a moment…
THE PENGUIN
Matt Reeves has stated that the tonal touchstones for this Colin Farrell-fronted spin-off are some incredible mobster movies such as The Long Good Friday and Scarface.
Lauren LeFranc (Agents of SHIELD, Chuck) is on scripting duty, with the events taking place in the aftermath of The Batman, depicting Oswald Cobblepot’s climb to power.
Reeves has stated that this show would arrive before The Batman’s sequel, and JOE spoke to Colin Farrell about the show itself, with the actor telling us the following:
“He’s a toughly-drawn character, The Penguin. Not without his humour, but he’s dangerous and he’s kind of broken himself a little bit, and he’s violent.
“And I didn’t get to delve as deep into him as I would’ve liked to, just because I’m greedy, and it was just an amazing character both on the page and then when I saw the design, it was just a blast to inhabit.
“But hopefully that’s what we’re going to get to do the TV show and I’ll get to really get stuck in, y’know? From talking a little bit to Lauren LeFranc, who is writing it at the moment, just some of the ideas that she has are just tasty!”
ARKHAM ASYLUM
Arising from the ashes of the Gotham P.D. show, Matt Reeves told the Happy Sad Confused podcast the following:
“We’ve actually now [moved] more into the realm of exactly what would happen in the world of Arkham as it relates coming off of our movie and some of the characters and their origins… almost leaning into the idea of… it’s like a horror movie or a haunted house that is Arkham.
“The idea, again the way that Gotham is a character in the movie, I really want Arkham to exist as a character. You go into this environment and encounter these characters in a way that feels really fresh.
“And so in our work on Gotham, that story started to evolve, and it started feeling [like], ‘Wait, we should really lean into this.’ And then that’s kinda where that’s gone.”
No word yet if the same creative team who were working on Gotham P.D. will now be working on the Arkham pivot, but a haunted house show set within the asylum sounds like it could be fantastic.
CATWOMAN
Currently sitting on the ‘maybe’ pile – because we all remember what happened the last time Catwoman got her own spin-off – it is inarguable that Zoe Kravitz as Selina Kyle/Catwoman was one of the definitive highlights of The Batman, and thoroughly deserves her own focused show.
The ending to the movie even sets it up nicely, as Kyle heads out of Gotham to embark on her own adventures outside of the villain-filled metropolis.
Reeves told CBR the following:
“I’ve talked to the HBO Max folks. What we’re really trying to do is to launch this world. If the world embraces this, we have a lot of ideas for things we want to do, and for sure we want Selena to continue…
“We’re talking about a lot of things, but all of it depends on… we’re about to release this movie, and it comes down to how people receive it.”
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