While a lot of the excitement surrounding the DCEU has been focused on Michael Keaton’s impending return as Bruce Wayne in The Flash, Warner Bros. are also quietly establishing HBO Max as an integral part of their strategy for the shared superhero universe.
Not only is the long-awaited Snyder Cut of Justice League heading exclusively to the streaming service, but J.J. Abrams is also spearheading a Justice League Dark series as part of Bad Robot’s first-look deal with the studio along with rumors that he’s also got plans for the likes of Zatanna and Constantine, while the announcement that the animated Aquaman miniseries would be produced by James Wan seems to indicate that it will exist as part of official canon.
Matt Reeves may be adamant that The Batman exists outside the confines of the DCEU’s main timeline, but that hasn’t stopped him from working to expand the world surrounding Robert Pattinson’s Caped Crusader, with a companion show recently being announced from Reeves and Boardwalk Empire’s Terence Winter that will focus exclusively on the Gotham City Police Department.
While on the surface it appears that it won’t be connected too closely to the movie, we’ve now heard from our sources – the same ones who told us that Justice League Dark and Green Lantern shows are coming to HBO Max – that Warner Bros. want Pattinson to appear in the series in some capacity, most likely in a cameo role.
With The Batman taking place during the Dark Knight’s second year as a costumed vigilante, the HBO Max project’s status as a prequel means that Batman himself definitely won’t feature, but Bruce Wayne could still be involved as we’re told that at some point during the first season, there’ll be a time jump to catch up to the events of Reeves’ film. Which is presumably how Pattinson can factor in.
Of course, some fans are finding it hard to get excited about the upcoming procedural given that the similar Gotham just wrapped up after five seasons and now doesn’t exactly seem like the ideal time to make a TV show glorifying the heroism of law enforcement, but even a brief cameo from Pattinson that ties it into the Gotham that we’ll see in The Batman would likely be more than enough to pique people’s interest.
