Back in July, it was announced HBO Max would be developing a series spinoff of Matt Reeves’ The Batman focusing on the Gotham City Police Department with writer and executive producer Terence Winter on board. Winter’s credits include The Sopranos, Wolf of Wall Street, and Boardwalk Empire. 

Here is that official press release. 

HBO Max announced today that it has given a series commitment to an original DC drama set in the Gotham City police department from The Batman filmmaker Matt Reeves, Boardwalk Empire creator Terence Winter, The Batman producer Dylan Clark, and Warner Bros. Television. The groundbreaking television series to be written by Winter is set in the world Reeves is creating for The Batman feature film and will build upon the motion picture’s examination of the anatomy of corruption in Gotham City, ultimately launching a new Batman universe across multiple platforms. The series provides an unprecedented opportunity to extend the world established in the movie and further explore the myriad of compelling and complex characters of Gotham. This marks the first television project for Reeves under his recently announced overall deal with the Warner Bros. Television Group.

Matt revealed a small detail about the series during DC FanDome yesterday stating the show takes place during Batman’s first year as the film is set in his second year. 

REEVES: “The idea of this story was a story in which Gotham, which has this depth of corruption, and the idea that we could do a series that is going deeper into an aspect of it, which in this case is the corrupt police department, the corrupt inner workings of the city. And the way we’re gonna do this series. Terence Winter is just an incredible writer, so the idea that we got him to do this, just is literally a dream. The idea is, we go back to year one, and year one is the beginning of the first emergence, the first appearance of this masked vigilante that starts to unsettle the city, and you start to see the story through the POV of these corrupt cops, and one in particular. And the story is actually a battle for his soul.”

“He’s a cop over generations and the history of corruption in Gotham is enormous and goes back many years, and the story is like, as you realize that there’s this myth-building in the background, you’re actually in a new place where you’ve never seen these characters before – some of them we’ll touch on that you may have seen in the comics, but others are totally new. Then you can go down an avenue and go into detail that you couldn’t do in a movie, and to go into these rich places and meet entirely new characters that Terence is going to create.”

This means there is a strong chance that cast members such as Jeffrey Wright (Jim Gordon) and newly announced addition Barry Keoghan (Officer Stanley Merkel) could have reoccurring roles in the HBO Max show.

Teaser footage from The Batman establishes a much more grounded take on the caped crusader that explains why someone like Winter would get involved with a show set within a comic book universe. Reeves also talked about how much corruption is in Gotham City that will be explored in The Batman taking cues from the 1970s thriller Chinatown. 

The Batman will be released on October 1st, 2021. 

SOURCE: DC FANDOME