Gotham TV Show Will Feature Classic Villains And Bruce Wayne

TV prequel will show the origins of some classic Batman characters

When Gotham was announced in September, the word on the street was that the Batman prequel was going to focus on a young Commissioner Gordon, and that Batman was not going to be a part of it. Now it sounds like it'll have more of a "Caped Crusader goes to Smallville " vibe.

"Batman is in it, as young Bruce Wayne," said Kevin Reilly, president of the Fox network, speaking at the Television Critics Association Winter Tour and reported by Collider . "This is an origin story. This is what I love about it. This is all of the classic Batman characters, with a young Bruce Wayne, with Detective Gordon before he’s Commissioner Gordon, with the Penguin, with the Riddler, and with the Joker. All of those characters are going to arc and become who they are. I’ve read the script. It’s really good. It’s going to be this operatic soap that has a slightly larger-than-life quality. And we will arc a young Bruce Wayne from a child into the final episode of the series, when he will put on the cape."

He also said that they're looking at casting a young Bruce Wayne now, "my guess would be that he'd be somewhere around 12."

The Hollywood Reporter also reports that Fox has the rights to the entire Batman catalogue after paying a "very healthy licence fee".

"This is not one of the things where you bought a franchise and then none of the characters people know," he went on to tell the Hollywood Reporter. "We will follow Bruce Wayne right up until the point where he gets interesting."

"It's Gotham teetering on the edge. This is all of the classic Batman characters."

Reilly also took the opportunity to announce that his Fox network is breaking with tradition and bypassing pilot season , the time of year when networks rush to make one-off episodes of potential new shows – many of which will never make it to anybody's TV screens.

“The broadcast development system was built in different era and is highly inefficient,” he said. “It is nothing short of a miracle that talent can still produce anything of quality in that environment. When they are competing, frankly, with a huge swath of cable that has a lot of flexibility and order pattern and flexibility in when the shows can go on, cable networks are able to course correct creatively and reshoot and recast.

"We're spreading out the pilots, and where ever we can, we're writing multiple scripts and hiring staff so that your staff is in place during the pilot and can roll right into the episodes."

The success of Game Of Thrones and The Walking Dead has obviously had an effect.