The Penguin launched on HBO/Max last week, but the original plan was for The Batman to get a spin-off revolving around a corrupt cop in Gotham P.D. during the Dark Knight's first year in the city.
Boardwalk Empire's Terence Winter was attached to develop the project, though he'd later leave due to creative differences. Joe Barton came on board to replace him, only to run into similar issues before the series was reconfigured into a story set in Arkham Asylum...which also failed to materialise (attempts were made to make it part of the DCU before it was scrapped).
The Playlist's Bingeworthy podcast recently had Winter as a guest and he elaborated on where things went wrong for him and "The Batman Epic Crime Saga" architect Matt Reeves.
"The idea was that we were going to do a 1970s cop show - something that felt like ‘Prince of the City’ but in the Gotham City Police Department," Winter explained. "It was going to have that ['70s] feel. It was going to be a present day cop who is like a third generation Gotham City cop, his grandfather, his dad, and Gotham City was largely corrupt."
"And this is our guy who we meet in the present day, who’s realizing that he’s kind of on the wrong side. The Batman was somebody that kind of lived in that world, but you never really saw him. And it was really all about the police department and sort of this guy."
As for why it didn't pan out, Winter added, "I worked on it for a while. And ultimately, Matt [Reeves] wasn’t feeling it. And I left."
It's a shame the show failed to materialise, but this sounds an awful lot like a prestige Gotham and, ultimately, how interesting would it be to follow another honest cop in Gotham City? We get that via Jim Gordon and, with no Batman in the show, this might have been a hard sell.
However, it seems this wasn't a story Reeves wanted to tell or one he felt added to the world he's created with The Batman franchise. We'd imagine The Penguin will address the state of the GCPD in some way after Carmine Falcone's fall and The Batman - Part II is bound to continue exploring the dynamic between the Dark Knight and Jim.
Do you think it was a mistake to scrap Winter's spin-off? As always, let us know in the comments section.