The Batman (starring Robert Pattinson) won’t be out for a while, but HBO Max is already working on a spinoff show. It’s hit a snag, though.
Months ago, we learned that HBO Max was readying a new live-action Batman TV show, to be based on Matt Reeves’ upcoming The Batman movie, starring Robert Pattinson as the Caped Crusader. In August, Reeves said that the show would be told from the point of view of a crooked cop, around the time a “masked vigilante … starts to unsettle the city.” According to him, “he story is actually a battle for his soul.”
There’s no official title for the show yet, although Gotham Central has been tossed around. We also don’t know if Pattinson’s Batman (or any of the big-name Batman characters) would show up. The idea is for the series to be one part of a — say it with me — shared universe of Batman stories across multiple platforms.
But it’s hit a snag. The Hollywood Report has it that showrunner Terence Winter — the creator of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire and Vinyl — is now off the project, after his vision for the show clashed with what Reeves and execs at WarnerMedia wanted. Basically, it’s the old Hollywood standby of “creative differences.”
If you were looking forward to this show, I wouldn’t worry too much. Early departures are known to happen, especially when you’re trying to fit a show into a wider universe.
WarnerMedia has famously had a harder time getting its DC Extended Universe off the ground than Marvel Studios did getting the MCU to take flight. This seems part and parcel with that. If, like me, you’re a little sick of the whole idea of shared universe programming, maybe this isn’t such bad news. Would it kill them to just make The Batman, see if it was any good, and then go forward with a spinoff when they know if people actually want one?
But that’s just me. As for The Batman itself, it’s due out on March 4, 2022.
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