Just think...Five years ago, all we had was Smallville.
Less than a half-hour after the east coast premiere of the Marvel Comics series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on ABC, Deadline reported that the Fox network won a bidding war and landed Gotham, a new Warner Bros. project based around DC Comics character Commissioner James Gordon in the days before he meets Batman. In an unusual move, Fox has given a straight-to-series order for Gotham to air during the 2014-15 television season.
Gotham will be executive produced and written by The Mentalist's Bruno Heller and according to a series description, will show Gordon's history as well as focusing on the villains that made Gotham City famous. Potentially, we could see villains like Carmine "The Roman" Falcone, or those unlikely to appear in a feature film, such as Mr. Szasz, the Mad Hatter, Professor Hugo Strange, Black Mask, The Black Spider, Calendar Man, Cluemaster and others.
Created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, Gordon debuted in the very first Batman story in 1939's Detective Comics #27 and later was given a daughter Barbara, who became Batgirl, and a son James, who grew up to become a serial murderer. He was first portrayed in live action by Lyle Tablot in the 1949 movie serial Batman and Robin, then by Neil Hamilton in the campy 1960s TV series Batman. Pat Hingle played the character in four Batman movies from 1989-97, then was replaced by Gary Oldman in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy from 2005-12.
This will become the fourth comic book based series currently on television, joining ABC's Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., the CW's Arrow and AMC's The Walking Dead. In addition, the CW is planning a possible Arrow spinoff series based on The Flash starring Grant Gustin, ABC is developing an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. prequel based on Peggy Carter, Fox has a pilot order for Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Fox is also developing a series based on BOOM! Studios Unthinkable.
Looks like it's your move, HBO. How about finally giving us those series based The Sandman and Preacher that we've been wanting to see all these years?
Serial killer son, James? Glad to have mostly parted ways with DC Didio. "Year One" Gordon sounds great for TV. Hope to see Sara Essen. The Question? Black Canary? Wildcat? Simonson/Goodwin's Manhunter? Richard Dragon? Promising!
ReplyDeleteActually, the concept of Gordon's adult son as a serial killer has been handled surprisingly well by writers Scott Snyder and Gail Simone. He's a very creepy and dangerous threat, and gives Gordon and his daughter Batgirl considerable interpersonal drama as characters.
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