Matt Reeves talked about the early concepts for a spinoff show set in his ‘The Batman’ universe in a recent chat with Entertainment Weekly. He commented on the Gotham City Police Department story he started working on with Terence Winter and a series based on Arkham Asylum by saying:
“As we were writing the movie [‘The Batman’], I was like, ‘Hey, you know what? I think there are some cool shows that we could do. It was actually why I wanted to make our deal at Warner Bros.’”
He shared about the projects’ cancellation:
“They [the studio] were like, ‘We like what you’re doing, and we want to lean harder into the marquee characters.’”
A Different Spinoff Is On The Horizon
An insider told Variety that another project focusing on Arkham was still possible although Warner Bros. shelved the idea for now. Meanwhile, early concepts found their way into the upcoming ‘The Penguin’ show. Reeves went on:
“What’s interesting is that, in the movie, the big red herring of the story is it seems like the person they’re looking for, that the Riddler’s pointing to must be the Penguin, some kind of informant. This movie creates a power vacuum, and because Penguin is so underestimated, people don’t really see who he is. We wanted it to be, not in a grandiose way, but in a mythic Shakespearean way, this kind of great tale.”
The Penguin Will Be Back
Colin Farrell returned to play Oz Cobb in ‘The Penguin.’ The HBO show’s synopsis noted that the villain would join a power battle a week after The Riddler destroyed the seawall and flooded Gotham City in 2022’s ‘The Batman.’
Show creator Lauren LeFranc explained:
“We’re in Oz’s world. We’re living in the underbelly of the city. Oz is a mover and a shaker. He can’t always be trusted. He’s very smart and very methodical, but he’s also extremely impulsive. You can’t predict what he’s going to do.”
‘The Penguin’ will premiere on September 19, 2024.
