One of the many new Comic Book shows that will be premiering this year is Fox's Gotham, which will follow the story of a younger Bruce Wayne and the infamous Gotham city that is run with crime. The showrunners, Bruno Heller and Danny Cannon, spoke with Moviepilot mostly about the villains that we will see in the series. We will be given some time to go into the backstories of the Batman's foes, and the duo were asked if they were going to embrace every aspect of the villains' stories. "Yeah, you have to," said Bruno Heller. "We’re not trying to turn it into Peter Sellars, the opera director. We’re not trying to do 'Oh my God, this is a whole different bizarre take on the whole world.' Like it’s set in Nazi Germany or something. The beauty of these characters is that everyone knows and loves them. It would be foolish not to embrace both the comic book aspect of it and the psychologically dark aspect of it, the funny aspect of it." With Oswald Cobblepott / Penguin, Edward Nygma / The Riddler, Selina Kyle / Catwoman, and some others all making appearances in the show, it's obvious that the one villain that seems to be missing is the Joker. While there are talks of the Joker making an appearance on the show, we don't know who is going to play him or how long we are going to wait until he appears. Bruno and Danny both laughed off the question of when we will get to see the character on the show, but Bruno started to vaguely talk about the character's appearance on the show. "I would say he is, for everyone involved to a degree because it’s about the villains, he’s the crown jewel in the villains’ crown. So we’re going to be very careful and thoughtful about how we roll that character out." Danny added that they wanted to make sure that the character was well worth it, instead of just having him on for the sake of including him. "We have the luxury in nobody’s ever really delved way back. The amount of thought and time we’ve been allowed to give that is terrific because when we finally do reveal the 'real' joker, and that’s a tip, it will be very thought out and worth the wait," he said.
The Joker hasn't really had much of a backstory in past Batman movies, so if he will appear in the show, he will probably be given a fair amount of character development. They were asked about taking on the challenge of giving the character a full backstory. "It is daunting but the way to take it on is not to go, 'Here it is' but 'Here it might be. Wait, it’s not that. It’s something else. Wait, it’s not even that.' I think that is the greatest tribute to the Joker, the fact that you may think it’s one thing, it ends up being something else because that guy, I think should never be able to be figured out," said Danny. While we will be seeing a lot of Batman villains make an appearance in some form on the show, it only seems like such a small portion of his greatest foes when you consider his massive rogues gallery that can only be compared to other top tier comic book characters such as Spider-Man or Superman. They were asked if there was any specific character that they'd like to introduce, such as Bane, Anarky, Hush, Killer Croc, Deadshot, or Clayface to name a few, to which Danny said, "I have a big pitch for Bruno of doing Mr. Freeze, the origin story of Mr. Freeze. I’m very excited about that one." When he was asked if he thought Mr. Freeze got much of a solid origin story in the past, he said, "No. So, we’re wide open on that one. The support from DC has been wonderful. Geoff Johns has been a really great person to work with because he knows everything, but he also empowers everybody to go, 'Hey man, that’s wide open. Go, go, go.' He really empowers us."
Going outside of just Batman's villains, another main focus that the show will be sticking to is the Gotham Police Department. A younger Jim Gordon will become the main character of the show, which will be a step-up from his previous roles in other media, and will be the first time since the comics that we really get to explore his story. Of course there is a reason why Gordon is the focus of the show as there is something that the showrunners see in him that creates lots of potential for great stories. When asked why they made him the focus, Bruno said, "Because he’s the human moral center of the Batman myth. If Commissioner Gordon doesn’t allow Batman to operate then Batman doesn’t operate. He’s the link between the two worlds, between the dark and the light world. He had a career in a procedural sense. He’s a framework. He’s not a wacky character who goes off to do odd things. He’s a steady paternal figure inside the myth so he’s the natural lead there." The Gotham series, specifically the pilot episode, will focus primarily on the death of Bruce Wayne's parents, which eventually prompts him to don the cape and cowl to become Batman. They decided to start that storyline in the first episode, rather than having them die near the end of the season, possibly to add more focus on the pain it causes Bruce, something that we went into lots of detail on in Batman Begins, although we didn't see much of him as a child as he dealt with it. Bruno was asked if he thought it could have started earlier, but he and Danny believes that the show needed to start there. "Yeah, it could have, but storytelling for a big audience, you need to start with, in this case, the nativity. The moment everyone knows and understands and connects to.Did it have to start with the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents? Could it have started even earlier?" When the show was screened, it received really great reviews. The show will hit your TV Screens this fall.
Bruno Heller (left) and Danny Cannon (right)
Everyone knows the name Commissioner Gordon. He is one of the crime world’s greatest foes, a man whose reputation is synonymous with law and order. But what is known of Gordon’s story and his rise from rookie detective to Police Commissioner? What did it take to navigate the multiple layers of corruption that secretly ruled Gotham City, the spawning ground of the world’s most iconic villains? And what circumstances created them – the larger-than-life personas who would become Catwoman, The Penguin, The Riddler, Two-Face and The Joker. GOTHAM is an origin story of the great DC Comics super villains and vigilantes, revealing an entirely new chapter that has never been told. From executive producer/writer Bruno Heller (“The Mentalist,” “Rome”), GOTHAM follows one cop’s rise through a dangerously corrupt city teetering on the edge of evil and chronicles the birth of one of the most popular super heroes of our time.
ComicBookMovie.com, and/or the user who contributed this post, may earn commissions or revenue through clicks or purchases made through any third-party links contained within the content above.