Fans anxious to see how Matt Reeves was going to handle classic Gotham City Police Department characters like Detective Harvey Bullock or Officer Renee Montoya, or even some of the breakout department members from The Batman are going to have to wait for a while. The Director has recently admitted that the project has been placed on hold.
Reeves recently told the Happy Sad Confused Podcast his original idea for the show has been shelved.
-Matt Reeves
“One thing that we were going to do, that I was going to do…so there’s the Gotham Police show, that one has actually been put on hold, we’re not really doing that. The series was going to be kind of like Prince of the City where it was going to be Year One. Because the movie is Year Two and I wanted it to be the first appearance [of Batman], but it wasn’t going to be a Batman story. It was going to be about this corrupt cop and it was going to be about how the worst gang in Gotham were the GCPD. He was going to have crossed paths with Gordon, who would have been someone to measure him against, but it would be a battle for his soul. I loved this idea!”
While The Batman’s HBO Max GCPD spinoff series was initially conceived of as an exploration of brutality and corruption within the department, Reeves’ focus has instead shifted towards Gotham’s Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane. The director has decided to morph the proposed cop drama into a more sinister series based around the city’s Arkham Asylum, the fictional facility that has housed nearly the entirety of Batman’s rogues gallery at some point or another in the comic book character’s 83-year history.
As Reeves’ original Sidney Lumet-esque take on a GCPD series was conceived before The Batman even wrapped production, it may be that the director was influenced by his own discovery process in terms of concept for the series. Some fans have also grumbled about a new GCPD cop-focused show coming out so quickly on the Heels of FOX’s Gotham wrap-up.
Of course, Reeves will have more than enough time in the future to examine Gotham’s Finest in the proposed two sequels to the Batman. Or the project may get a new influx of interest from fans given the series’ obvious box office power.
In the meantime, Bat Fans can keep their radar going for the new series’ other spinoff, featuring the origin of the Penguin. It’s predicted to go into production sometime later this year.