Gotham will draw to a close with its fifth and final season but fans of the series won't have long to wait until they get their next small screen Batman fix. Pennyworth debuts on Epix in June and executive producer Danny Cannon confirmed at the Television Critics Association press tour yesterday that it will indeed be a prequel to Gotham.
He says that the tone of the series will be extremely dark as we see Alfred (Jack Bannon) work alongside Thomas Wayne to form a security company in London, England. "It’s twentysomething years before Gotham, it’s a very different world," said Cannon. "This is the DC version of 1960s London." What does that mean? Well, it sounds like a totally alternate reality!
"13 degrees history is different: It’s not the England we know," he continued. "It looks and feels like, but if you look a little closer, [you ask], ‘Why is that like that? Why is that building there? What war is he talking about?'"
Adding that he hopes to deliver an "unhinged, R-rated" series, Cannon confirmed that we won't see any classic Batman villains or their ancestors but we will see "archetypal villains and classic villains of British literature; they’re all available to us." That could include a descendant of Jack the Ripper, believe it or not!
Those of you that have doubts about Pennyworth may be relieved to learn that, according to Cannon, it's been scoring well with test audiences. "We had a test audience and there were only so many who knew it was a DC-related series. It was incredibly positive and that’s because the characters are being drawn out. There’s so much to draw from and so much to imagine."