The Batman Director Indicates Gotham PD & Arkham Asylum Are the Same Show

The Batman Director Indicates Gotham PD & Arkham Asylum Are the Same Show

The Gotham PD series appears to have shifted focus to a horror-inspired story focused on Arkham Asylum according to The Batman director Matt Reeves.

The previously announced Gotham PD and rumored Arkham Asylum series might be the same thing according to the director of The Batman. The Batman has finally hit theaters and it appears to have successfully kick-started a new Batman franchise by bringing in $125 million in its opening weekend making it the second-biggest opening weekend since theaters shut in March 2020 behind only Spider-Man: No Way Home. Before the film hit theaters, Warner Bros. and HBO Max had already announced spin-off series for The Penguin and more.

First announced in July 2020, a series centered around The Gotham PD was in development at HBO Max and would take place in "Year One" of Robert Pattinson's Batman story, making it a prequel to the film and likely establishing how Gordan and Batman's formed a partnership. Recently, Reeves let it slip out they were developing something related to Arkham Asylum, with many people thinking it would be a third spin-off series to continue this planned expansion of the Batman franchise. While the Penguin series seems to be picking up steam, not much has been reported about Gotham PD, but it appears the series may have evolved past its original intent.

IN AN INTERVIEW WITH THE CYBER NERDS, VIA THE DIRECT, REEVES TALKED ABOUT THE VARIOUS PLANS FOR THE BATMAN SPIN-OFF SERIES AND TALKED ABOUT HOW THE GOTHAM PD SERIES HAS EVOLVED MORE INTO A SERIES ABOUT ARKHAM. IT APPEARS THE PROJECT HAS SHIFTED AWAY FROM A PREQUEL AND MORE WITH AN IMMEDIATE FOLLOW-UP TO THE BATMAN. REEVES DROPPED THAT TONALLY, THE SERIES WILL HAVE MORE IN COMMON WITH A HORROR PROJECT THAN ANYTHING ELSE. REEVES'S STATEMENT CAN BE READ BELOW:

“The GCPD thing, that story has 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.”  

There is plenty of story possibility to explore with Gotham. Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth was one of the influential Batman comics to come out in the 1980s, and Dave McKean's artwork has a horror-inspired gothic flare the series could draw from. That comic itself became the inspiration for the popular Arkham video game series, which ran from 2009 to 2015 and that is one of the most popular depictions of Batman, one that has influenced subsequent adaptations. The planned Ben Affleck Batman film was focused on Arkham Asylum, and now it appears the series will explore the various villains of Gotham City.

One reason the series might have shifted is a real-world factor, as 2020 saw massive protests across the United State protesting police brutality and a call for police accountability after the death of George Floyd, the public appetite for series about cops has certainly gone down. The series may have decided to pivot away from the controversial topic to exploring Batman's famous rogue's gallery. A series focused on Arkham Asylum allows the creators to explore Batman's rich tapestry of villains in various different ways, and could even give a spotlight to other lesser-known villains to the general public like Maxie Zeus, Mad Hatter, and Professor Pyg as inmates and even show characters like Hugo Strange, Harley Quinn, and Scarecrow as doctors at Arkham before they become their iconic villains. It also could expand on one famous villain the ending of The Batman teased, if that character is not the primary focus of the sequel.