Fans were caught off-guard a few days ago when Matt Reeves casually revealed that one of the in-development HBO Max spinoffs built out from The Batman was set to revolve around the rogues’ gallery of iconic villains confined to Arkham Asylum.
We knew that an episodic series focusing on the Gotham City Police Department was in the works because it was confirmed almost two years ago, while Colin Farrell’s solo Penguin effort was added to the docket several months back. However, it sounds as though there may still only be a pair of TV shows in the works, with Reeves intimating that the GCPD and Arkham projects are one and the same.
Speaking to The Cyber Nerds, the filmmaker offered up some new details regarding the streaming slate, hinting that post-production on The Batman and the final cut of the movie may have influenced his creative process.
“The GCDP thing, that story has kinda evolved. We’ve actually now [moved] more into the realm of exactly what would happen in the world of Arkham as it relates coming off of our movie, and some of the characters… almost leaning into the idea of… it’s like a horror movie or a haunted house that is Arkham.
The idea, again the way that Gotham is a character in the movie, I really want Arkham to exist as a character. You go into this environment and encounter these characters in a way that feels really fresh. And so in our work on Gotham, that story started to evolve, and it started feeling [like], ‘Wait, we should really lean into this.’ And then that’s kinda where that’s gone.
The GCPD show was first announced before The Batman had even wrapped shooting, so you can understand why Reeves might want to freshen up the concept once he’d locked Robert Pattinson’s debut under the costume. It would be easy enough to merge the two premises together, because the police are largely responsible for sending people to Arkham that aren’t apprehended by the Dark Knight himself.
