A new chapter of Batman live-action movies history began in 2022 when Robert Pattinson donned the cape and cowl for The Batman , and he’ll return to the role in 2026 for The Batman: Part II . In addition to the main film series though, this continuity crafted by filmmaker Matt Reeves has expanded into television, with The Penguin now airing on HBO and streaming to those with a Max subscription . However, before the Colin Farrell-led series entered development, the plan had been for the first TV show set in the universe to focus on the Gotham City Police Department , and learning new details about this vacated project makes it hurt more knowing what could have been.
Terence Winter, the creative mind behind Boardwalk Empire and Tulsa King , spoke on The Playlist ’s Bingeworthy podcast about the time he spent working on this GCPD show with Reeves, with the intention being that he would have been the showrunner had it moved forward. Here’s what Winter had to say about the plot: The idea was that we were going to do a 1970s cop show— something that felt like [Sidney Lumet’s 1981 crime and police drama ‘Prince of the City,’ but in the Gotham City Police Department. It was going to have that [‘70s] feel.
It was going to be a present-day cop who is like a third-generation Gotham City cop, you know, his grandfather, his dad, and, you know, and Gotham City was largely corrupt. And this is the guy we meet in the present day who’s realizing that he’s kind of on the wr.
