Gotham Knights television series

[Christopher]

I find it hard to imagine HBO and CW would have no interest in making a Batman show. They decided Batgirl, Batwoman and Gotham Knights were just too interesting and lucrative to bother with an actual Batman show?

I'm sure they'd both love to have a Batman show, but it's not their decision. As the showrunners say in the quotes you provided, it's DC/Warner Bros. that decides who gets to use which characters, and they make more profit from the Batman feature films than they make from any of their TV series. So it doesn't matter how much the networks would like to make Batman shows -- DC/WB won't let them as long as Batman's still a profitable movie character.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

^ yeah, that's my point

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

We're getting a new Batman cartoon at least, so that could be good. It's certainly a lot more interesting to me than Gotham Knights is right now.

 

[JD]

Even if we didn't get a full on Batman show, I can guarantee you that if they were allowed to use him on TV, we would have gotten him on one of the Arrowverse shows, and we probably would have seen Bruce in the suit at some point on Titans.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Titans: So good they're making it twice.

At the same time.

 

[Noname Given]

How the fuck do you know?

Yeah The Logical assumption would be that any Batman TV series pitched is shot down by the WB Execs with a responsive of:

"We're doing Batman feature films and making a ton of money with it, thanks..."

 

[DigificWriter]

Yeah The Logical assumption would be that any Batman TV series pitched is shot down by the WB Execs with a responsive of:

"We're doing Batman feature films and making a ton of money with it, thanks..."

Except that hasn't been a policy for a decade.

We don't know specifically what criteria are used to determine character access, but we do know that a preemptive ban based on the notion that "such hands such character is one we only want to be seen on the big screen" is no longer one of those criteria.

 

[CorporalClegg]

JFC

 

[JD]

They're also probably not going to want to take the chance that people might not want to watch a movie that's not connected to the TV show they've been watching. I could see people who aren't huge fans, not wanting to pay to see Batman in a movie when they're already seeing him every week on TV.
I have to admit, that's the reason I was a little surprised they were doing a Flash movie while the show was still on the air. Especially a movie with so many of the same characters that is adapting a storyline the show already did.

Except that hasn't been a policy for a decade.

We don't know specifically what criteria are used to determine character access, but we do know that a preemptive ban based on the notion that "such hands such character is one we only want to be seen on the big screen" is no longer one of those criteria.

That might not be a "policy" anymore, but they are still pretty clearly avoiding showing a full Batman as much as possible.

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

This was explicitly disproven when it was revealed that Arrow was allowed to use Suicide Squad-related characters expressly as an 'audience test' and primer for the original Suicide Squad film.

They were allowed to use them. Then told they couldn't because of the movies. It was proven by what we saw and what everyone has said working on the show.

WB hates having "competing" versions of characters in the movies and on TV. I'm shocked they didn't kill Flash on TV the moment they cast him in the movie.

 

[Christopher]

WB hates having "competing" versions of characters in the movies and on TV. I'm shocked they didn't kill Flash on TV the moment they cast him in the movie.

As I said, the show was too big a hit for that. And maybe it had something to do with Geoff Johns being the chief decision-maker and also being the creator of the whole "Thawne killed Barry's mom and framed his dad" backstory that played out in both versions.

Not to mention that "Flash of Two Worlds" was the beginning of the DC multiverse, so maybe they were always thinking in terms of crossing the two over like they did in Crisis and are rumored to be planning for the Flash movie.

 

[DigificWriter]

They were allowed to use them. Then told they couldn't because of the movies. It was proven by what we saw and what everyone has said working on the show.

You're missing my point:
Without a Suicide Squad movie being planned, Arrow would never have had access to Suicide Squad-related characters at all.

IOW, the only reason Arrow got access to Suicide Squad-related characters was because the film division wanted to guage interest in said characters and whether or not they could headline a feature film of their own.

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

You're missing my point:
Without a Suicide Squad movie being planned, Arrow would never have had access to Suicide Squad-related characters at all.

IOW, the only reason Arrow got access to Suicide Squad-related characters was because the film division wanted to guage interest in said characters and whether or not they could headline a feature film of their own.

Which is the point we've all been making.

The movies dictate what the shows can do. Back to the original point that you've been missing, Batman being in movies is impeding Batman being on the small screen. Even if there's no official policy, every single fact still points to that being the case. Whether it's just the momentum from what was or something else. Until Batman stops making money in the movies, he's not showing up on our television sets.

 

[DigificWriter]

The movies dictate what the shows can do

They don't, though.

The film division didn't dictate Arrow's access to Suicide Squad-related characters; it (the film division) facilitated said access.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Here's the an interview talking about this: https://www.vulture.com/2016/09/dc-comics-greg-berlanti-c-v-r.html

They said to us a year and a half before they started developing Suicide Squad, “Will you guys put [a version of] the Suicide Squad in your show? Because we want to have it as a film at some point.” It also happened with Geoff when Geoff and Andrew [Kreisberg] and I were creating Flash. They were both really huge fans of Cisco Ramon, [also known as] Vibe, and had written a Vibe comic [in 2013] to try and bring him back. They said, “Could we please have Vibe on the show?”

The film division asked them to include the Suicide Squad and then took away the characters when the movie was released. There's no indication of whether they would've been allowed to use the Suicide Squad characters if the movie hadn't happened, or if they even wanted to. But they certainly wanted to use them after they were introduced and weren't allowed due to the film division dictating what the series could do.

 

[Jayson1]

Their was a time I am sure when they would have never allowed for Superman to have his own tv show as well once Comic Book movies became all the rage but now we have one. If Batman is off limits I doubt it will be forever. Sooner or later he will get his own show as well. Though it might only happen if the upcoming Batman movie fails to make money or is not popular.

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

Marc Guggenheim (Arrow producer) - "If DC wants to say, ‘No more Suicide Squad,’ that is absolutely DC’s right and we will work with what we got."

Willa Holland (Actress on Arrow) - "When DC found out they were going to be doing their own movie we had to axe all of the characters before we even got to show them".

DigificWriter (random person on internet with zero connection or facts to back up their claims) - "They don't, though."

Hmmmm....

 

[Marc]

WB hates having "competing" versions of characters in the movies and on TV. I'm shocked they didn't kill Flash on TV the moment they cast him in the movie.

Given that The Flash was well established on tv, they might not have had the power to can the show but could have put restrictions on it if they wanted to use additional characters that were intended for the movie (c.f the comments about suicide squad characters on Arrow).

 

[DigificWriter]

^ Willa's comments were invalidated by people who were actually in a position to more intimately understand and be aware of the specific processes by which access to all DC-related characters - not just the Suicide Squad - was determined.

 

[Christopher]

Given that The Flash was well established on tv, they might not have had the power to can the show but could have put restrictions on it if they wanted to use additional characters that were intended for the movie (c.f the comments about suicide squad characters on Arrow).

Of course they have the power. They own the show, and they own half of the network that airs it. But these decisions are based on money. Generally, the movies take precedence because they bring the studio more money than a show on The CW does. But The Flash was a big hit and was thus profitable for them on an ongoing basis, so they had an incentive to keep it. (Although now that it's occurred to me, I do think Geoff Johns's affinity for the character may well have been a factor too.)