The Penguin begins shooting in a few weeks, but the original plan at Warner Bros. 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, leaving fans with high hopes for the HBO Max TV series.
He'd later leave due to creative decisions, with Joe Barton coming on board to replace him. Unfortunately, he was similarly unable to deliver what filmmaker Matt Reeves wanted, and the show has now been retooled as a story set in Arkham Asylum.
Talking to The Wrap, Winter confirmed his departure was "purely a case of creative differences," and went on to better explain why his version of the untitled series didn't happen.
"We were going to do a gritty cop show that happened to be set in the world of the Gotham City Police Department. I did a couple of outlines and just never really got it there, I guess, for Matt Reeves and company," he explains. "We just decided to part ways rather than keep banging our heads against the wall, if we were seeing the show in a different way."
"But it was completely amicable and I know Joe Barton took a swing, as well. I think he ended up in the same place, and now they’re doing a show about the Penguin. I think it’s great."
"[Putting] the template of a gritty seventies cop show on top of Gotham City, this incredibly corrupt police department, that was really interesting to me," Winter continued. "I’m not particularly a fan of the comic book genre, but when they presented that, and I said, 'Oh, this is what I want to do,' I got on board.'"
It's a shame we didn't get to see the series become a reality, though it did sound very similar to Fox's Gotham. Shifting the focus to Arkham could mean a lot of Batman's rogues get to take centre stage, hopefully laying the groundwork for them to appear in Reeves' big screen sequels.
There have also been rumblings about standalone stories for those baddies, but nothing beyond The Penguin is officially greenlit.
What are your hopes for The Batman's corner of the DCU moving forward?