An upcoming TV show will focus on Gotham City’s men and women in blue after they share screen time with Robert Pattinson’s new big-screen Caped Crusader.
HBO Max announced Friday it has given a series commitment to a new DC streaming drama set in the Gotham City Police Department and spinning off of director Matt Reeves’ upcoming “The Batman” movie (in theaters Oct. 1, 2021). The show, whose creative brain trust includes Reeves and “Boardwalk Empire” creator Terence Winter, will build on themes of corruption in the GCPD introduced in “The Batman” film and also help launch a new Batman-centric universe across multiple entertainment platforms.
“This is an amazing opportunity, not only to expand the vision of the world I am creating in the film, but to explore it in the kind of depth and detail that only a long-form format can afford,” Reeves said in a statement.
The Gotham cop show follows the model of the rival Marvel Cinematic Universe, where its movies are launching tie-in shows on the Disney+ streaming service, including the upcoming “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” and “WandaVision.”
“The Batman,” however, will launch as a standalone project and is not connected to other recent connected-universe DC movies, including “Wonder Woman 1984,” “Aquaman” and “The Flash” (the latter which is in talks to have Michael Keaton return as its Batman).
It’s an interesting and high-profile move from DC after cop TV shows have come under fire recently in the wake of George Floyd’s death and Black Lives Matter protests. But Gotham City law and order is familiar territory for comic-book fans.
Fox’s “Gotham” TV show, which aired from 2014-19, focused on the ins and outs of the GCPD, though was primarily set when a pre-Batman Bruce Wayne was a kid. The new effort might hew closer to the acclaimed comic-book series “Gotham Central,” which focused on police officers dealing with not only a vigilante superhero on a daily basis, but also his vicious and colorful rogues’ gallery.
In addition to Pattinson, “The Batman” stars Jeffrey Wright as GCPD commissioner James Gordon, Colin Farrell as the Penguin, Paul Dano as the Riddler, Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman and Andy Serkis as Batman’s loyal butler, Alfred Pennyworth.
