Gotham PD show in "Nolanverse" being developed by the WB

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by Dream, Aug 8, 2013.

  1. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    I'm not talking about what the public already knows. I'm talking about the potential of the setting as it exists in the comics, potential that writers could draw on to make a show that would create interest in the audience. After all, Batman: The Animated Series used a ton of characters and elements from the comics that nobody in the general, non-comics-reading public had ever heard of before. Heck, that's the whole point of doing a TV show based on the comics -- not to rehash what the audience already knows, but to take the rich material in the comics and expose it to a broader audience. The key is to think of the comics as raw material that TV writers can use to build a show. The more interesting elements and characters there are in the raw material, the richer the show the writers can build from it. And Gotham City in the comics is an extremely rich setting even aside from the costumed heroes and villains, probably the richest setting in DC's Earth.
     
  2. Hartzilla2007

    Hartzilla2007 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, but it still had Batman and it still used the characters people were familiar with.

    And considering the last show set in Gotham they tried that didn't have Batman or the usual villains aka Birds of Prey got canceled I don't think the general audience is that invested in the overall world.
     
  3. Captaindemotion

    Captaindemotion Admiral Admiral

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    It's a false premise to compare Batman: TAS, an animated show on a children's network (however good and with a devoted but small adult fan base) with a live-action show which has to compete with the big boys on a network channel.
     
  4. DigificWriter

    DigificWriter Vice Admiral Admiral

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    About the 'debunking' link posted earlier: Jett has his detractors, but he's fairly well-connected when it comes to sources inside Warner Bros., and the people he talks to are usually accurate, so if he says this is BS, I believe him.
     
  5. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Actually many of the characters we're familiar with now made their screen debut in B:TAS -- not just characters created for the show like Harley Quinn and Renee Montoya, but Harvey Bullock, Leslie Thompkins, Mayor Hill, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, Ra's al Ghul and Talia, Killer Croc, the Ventriloquist, Rupert Thorne, and a number of others. At the time, they were totally unfamiliar to non-comics audiences. The show made them familiar.

    TV shows based on comics are not made only for people familiar with the comics. That would be pointless, since comics readership is in the tens of thousands at best while TV shows need millions of viewers to survive. It should be taken as read that the show's characters -- even the main heroes and villains -- are going to be unfamiliar to a lot of the target audience. When Smallville was on the air, I heard stories about viewers who had absolutely no clue that the show had anything to do with Superman. They may have heard of Superman, but the name Clark Kent didn't have any prior meaning to them. So you really can't assume that audience familiarity is important. The goal, as a rule, is to make a show that's accessible to people who aren't already familiar with the characters, to make it new for them. Every show needs to stand on its own, regardless of its source material.


    That show wasn't drawing on the rich comics material that I'm talking about, but on more of a low-budget approximation of what the Burton and Schumacher movies did. That's completely unrelated to my point, which is about the untapped potential of what the actual comic books have established about Gotham over the decades -- material that has never been touched by screen adaptations. I've mentioned Gotham Central several times. Its main character of Crispus Allen has only been adapted for the screen once, in three of the shorts in the Nolanverse Gotham Knight anime. Its other lead, Renee Montoya, was created for B:TAS, but the version of the character developed in GC and after, who grew far beyond the minor supporting role she had in TAS (including being outed as a lesbian and eventually becoming the Question), has never been seen onscreen. There are no doubt quite a few other characters that could be drawn on, not to mention a great many comics storylines about Gotham's history and culture.

    Birds of Prey's failure wasn't due to its premise. Any premise can be done well or done poorly, and BoP tended toward the latter. It was a pre-Nolan show so it was going for a campy, Burtonesque take on superheroics which was no longer enough for a modern audience. It was saddled with a "secret metahumans" premise in a misguided emulation of Smallville. It suffered from a bland and totally miscast lead actress as Huntress (though Dina Meyer was one of the best Barbara Gordons ever and Ian Abercrombie was an awesome Alfred), and it was trying too hard to be Charmed rather than Birds of Prey. And it suffered from a small budget that gave it a claustrophobic, backlot feel. But there was a lot of potential in the underlying idea of a team keeping Batman's legacy alive after Batman had been broken and gone into retirement. It could have been done well. The reasons why it failed had nothing to do with what or whom it was about.


    No analogy is meant to be exact, and I wasn't offering it to make the point you seem to think I was. The point is what I said above, that B:TAS is an example of a show that made use of many, many characters and storylines that had never been adapted for the screen before and made them work so well that audiences today have forgotten that they were totally unknown outside of comics before B:TAS. We assume we've always been watching Two-Face and Ivy and Ra's, but the fact is, before 1992, nobody outside of the comics audience had ever seen them. So it's not about what the audience is already familiar with. It's about what ideas exist in the source material that the creators of an adaptation can generate interesting stories from. I'm not talking about the show's chances of success or failure; I'm simply discussing process.
     
  6. Captaindemotion

    Captaindemotion Admiral Admiral

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    ^ Okay, I get you now.
     
  7. SG-17

    SG-17 Commodore Commodore

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    It should be set in the Arrow universe. It seems that in there, supervillany is rising as a reaction to Ollie's actions rather than the other way around.

    Putting Gotham PD into the Arrowverse could serve as a means to see how supervillany is rising in the Arrowverse as well as be a launching pad to introduce more superheroes and establish a new linked television universe similar to the DCAU.
     
  8. Frontier

    Frontier Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I think we're all reading too much into this report. It sounds like they're writing a pilot, rather than green-lighting and casting a series.

    Pilots are meant to be test-beds, and that is what this sounds like.

    If they make such and it doesn't work; it doesn't work. Tons of pilots are made and never sold/go to series.

    We're only hearing of this one because of it's connection to major high-profile films.

    That said, as many issues as it will surely have, I still can't help but be intrigued simply because it's Nolan's Gotham. Even sans Batman and Gordon.

    I do wonder if there is anyone from TDKR they could get to be in this, though? Any cops? Maybe Foley?
     
  9. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    The story also doesn't appear to have been picked up by any other sites, and if the story were legit I would think it would have at least been picked up by more comics sites.
     
  10. Caretaker

    Caretaker Commodore Premium Member

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    That doesn't mean the whole idea of this series (or one like it) isn't fun to discuss and think about. I'd love to see a continuation - or even link the Arrowverse with the Nolanverse.
     
  11. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    I think the Nolanverse should be allowed to stand as its own distinct work. Nolan had his own specific story he wanted to tell, he told it from start to finish, and the one attempt by other people to do more stories in that universe -- the Gotham Knight anime -- was imperfectly reconcilable with the films (e.g. a cop character who was pro-Batman in the anime was anti-Batman in TDK). So maybe it's best to let it remain a completed, self-contained work and move on to create the next screen interpretation of Batman.

    Although if they announced an Anne Hathaway Catwoman movie, I'd gladly make an exception for that.
     
  12. Timelord Victorious

    Timelord Victorious Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I'd be more interested in a what-if show, that has all the comic book stuff except the Batman, where ordinary cops have to deal with all this super shit themselves.

    It would open with the famous scene of Bruce and his parents leaving a theater and then... get home savely after a little robbery scare, because a cop is able to intervene in time.
    And then a 20 years latet transition to the present.
     
  13. Icemizer

    Icemizer Commodore Commodore

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    ^Thats makes Batman seem kind of useless doesnt it? I mean if ordinary cops can deal with the problems of Joker and Bane and Rhas, whats the point of Batman at all?
     
  14. Enterprise is Great

    Enterprise is Great Vice Admiral Admiral

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  15. JacksonArcher

    JacksonArcher Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Mhmmm. Interesting.

    I remember around the time of Smallville there were rumors circulating that WB was considering a Bruce Wayne TV show which would have chronicled the years Wayne went around the world learning to become Batman. I believe a pilot was written, but I can't be sure. If memory serves me correctly, it was suppose to be run by the showrunners of Smallville. Naturally, it was abandoned in favor of Batman Begins (which went on to explore Batman's origins).

    This sounds somewhat similar - perhaps we follow a young Bruce Wayne while he trains and learns to become Batman, however I can see this not being the focus of the show. If Gordon is the focus, then we could have a sub-plot where young Bruce Wayne begins to move toward his destiny of becoming Batman, but it's something we don't follow all the time. That approach could be interesting.

    Regardless of whatever becomes of the show, I've always thought James Gordon was one of the most interesting characters in Batman's mythology. Batman: Year One is essentially from Gordon's POV and it would be really cool to see a show where a young James Gordon has to waddle through the corruption of the Gotham City Police Department, while dealing with the escalating crime of Gotham. I'd love to see some supporting characters we've never seen in live-action before... such as Harvey Bullock, Renee Montoya, Crispus Allen, and so on and so forth. Perhaps even Loeb and Flass, if they are drawing from the Year One mold?
     
  16. Out Of My Vulcan Mind

    Out Of My Vulcan Mind Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Wiki has a good rundown on the proposed Bruce Wayne series here. And here's a detailed description of the pilot script.
     
  17. JacksonArcher

    JacksonArcher Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Thank you for those links! It never occurred to me to actually dig up information on the would-be show. It all sounds very interesting, and probably would have been an entertaining show, but I'm glad it got canned and WB moved ahead with Batman Begins instead.
     
  18. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Maybe OOMVM's links cover this, but the Bruce Wayne show came first; once they abandoned it due to Begins, they had Gough and Millar develop Smallville in its place.


    If Bruce is starting out at ten years old, I really don't see his training being a major element. We might see some of the events that shaped his psyche and pushed him toward his future path, but the actual training period would be beyond the chronological scope of the series.


    Loeb and Flass were in Batman Begins, played by Colin McFarlane and Mark Boone Junior, respectively.

    I wonder who'd be good for Bullock. Robert Costanzo, his voice actor in B:TAS, would've been perfect for the character in live action back then, but he's in his early 70s now.

    Although, this being the modern DC, they'll probably revamp him as a young, good-looking guy -- sort of like he was in Batman: Earth One.
     
  19. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I'm pretty sure Loeb & Flass will be in the show, they seem to be a pretty regular part of Gordon and Batman's histories at this point.
     
  20. Set Harth

    Set Harth Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Loeb was also in The Dark Knight, where he was killed by the Joker.