The DC multiverse is about to get bigger as THR is reporting that Matt Reeves is working on a police drama for HBO Max set in the Gotham City of his upcoming film, The Batman. The Batman is supposedly set in a separate universe than the current DCEU, meaning that this show will possibly kick off an entire second DC cinematic universe. The series has no name at the moment, but insiders are calling it Gotham Central, after the old Gotham City police comic book.
Terence Winter, who has a long relationship with HBO thanks to working on The Sopranos and creating Boardwalk Empire, will both executive produce and write the series. The show will reportedly focus on crime, policing, and corruption in a city under the watch of Batman. With Winter’s experience in crime shows, the show should be exceptionally interesting.
The description of the show makes it sound very street-level, almost a police procedural just with Batman lurking in the background. It isn’t clear if Robert Pattinson, who plays Batman in The Batman, or Jeffrey Wright, who plays Commissioner Gordon, will appear in the show at all, but most likely it will not focus on them in any major way.
Make no mistake: DC sees this as an opportunity to build a successful universe around Batman. The studio said that the show 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.”
That would make it the fourth officially running DC cinematic universe alongside the DCEU, the animated movies, and the Arrowverse. It’s also the second series to focus on policing in Gotham since Fox’s Gotham did as well. That’s not to mention the other DC HBO Max shows coming, including Green Lantern and a Justice League Dark series, neither of which may be connected to any of the other universes either. Let’s just hope Michael Keaton can hold it all together.
