Boardwalk Empire creator Terence Winter has officially exited HBO Max’s prequel series to The Batman. Citing the usual creative differences, Winter will no longer be showrunning the highly-anticipated spinoff that will lead into the events of Matt Reeves‘ film starring Robert Pattinson as the Dark Knight. With his experience on critically acclaimed series like The Sopranos, Winter’s involvement added an air of prestige drama to The Batman spinoff, and he will now have to be replaced.
Whoever Warner Bros. finds as a replacement will also have to juggle the daunting task of expanding The Batman‘s new universe. While the series will focus on the first year of Pattinson’s Batman showing up in Gotham and how that affects the city’s tarnished police department, it will also be a launchpad for new spinoffs in the Battinson-verse. (Don’t quote us on that name.) Via The Hollywood Reporter:
Picked up straight to series in July and designed as a companion TV series to go alongside The Batman, the drama is set in the world Reeves is creating for The Batman feature film and will build upon the pic’s examination of the anatomy of corruption in Gotham City. It ultimately will launch a new Batman universe across multiple platforms and extends the world from the movie and characters of Gotham. It’s unclear if The Batman stars Robert Pattinson (Batman/Bruce Wayne) and Jeffrey Wright (police commissioner James Gordon) will appear in the HBO Max offshoot.
Fortunately, overcoming setbacks for the Battinson-verse has become part of the job for Reeves. Like most of Hollywood, The Batman production was put on hold for months due to the pandemic, and when it finally returned to filming, Pattinson tested positive for COVID-19 after just a few days. So finding a new showrunner shouldn’t be too difficult after dealing with your new Batman catching a potentially deadly virus.
(Via The Hollywood Reporter)