Writer Joe Barton has signed on as showrunner to HBO Max’s Gotham PD. The series is a spinoff of director Matt Reeves’s upcoming movie The Batman, a prequel to that film’s events set in Batman’s (Robert Pattinson) first year as a masked vigilante. Gotham PD will "build upon the film’s examination of the anatomy of corruption in Gotham City," per Warner Bros.’ description of the series. Reeves, an executive producer on the project, has said the story would follow one crooked cop in a "battle for his soul."
Terence Winter, a writer best known for his Oscar-nominated work on The Wolf of Wall Street screenplay and as the creator of the HBO drama Boardwalk Empire, was previously attached to the project as showrunner. In November, Deadline reported that Winter had stepped down from the position due to creative differences.
Two months later, the GCPD has found a replacement in Joe Barton, who will serve as showrunner and an executive producer for the show, per Variety. The British writer previously created and wrote the series Giri/Haji for BBC Two/Netflix. His film work includes The Ritual, My Days of Mercy, and co-writing the upcoming Invasion starring Riz Ahmed and Octavia Spencer. He is also slated to adapt Sally Green’s Half Bad novels in a project executive produced by Andy Serkis for Netflix.
Both Winter and Barton have experience writing about the kind of corruption that Gotham PD will focus on. Winter is a veteran of The Sopranos as well as Boardwalk Empire, two well-regarded prestige dramas that explored the world of organized crime. Giri/Haji similarly navigates London’s criminal underworld but may hew a little closer to the vision for Gotham PD as it follows a Tokyo detective conducting an investigation amidst the city’s corruption. While Winter could have brought a classic, old-school take to the most well-known police department in comics’ history, Barton’s young, fresh voice may be a better compliment to Reeves’s less experienced Batman.
Gotham PD is set to expand the world of Reeves’s film across multiple platforms, but the Gotham multiverse is becoming mighty crowded. Not only did another prequel focusing on (future) Commissioner Jim Gordon, Gotham, wrap up in 2019, the city will serve as the primary location for the next season of the CW’s Batwoman and HBO Max’s Titans. Comments made by DC Films president Walter Hamada also made it seem like a separate, but concurrent Batman series to Robert Pattinson’s turn in the cowl might additionally be set in that city. However, as Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck are both expected to appear in The Flash, but neither has signed on for any additional DCEU films, it’s unclear just how many Batmen and Gothams we’ll be dealing with. Audiences can probably expect Gotham PD to stick closely to its central officers and keep the caped crusaders at a distance to avoid further confusion.
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