Gotham Knights TV Series Announcement... Thoughts?

General Discussion Movies & TV
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Some official stuff…

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"Batman is dead, and a powder keg has ignited Gotham City without the Dark Knight to protect it. In the wake of Bruce Wayne’s murder, his adopted son Turner Hayes (Oscar Morgan, “De Son Vivant”) is framed for killing the Caped Crusader, along with the children of some of Batman’s enemies: Duela (Olivia Rose Keegan, “Days of Our Lives”), an unpredictable fighter and skilled thief who was born in Arkham Asylum and abandoned by her father, Harper Row (Fallon Smythe, “grown-ish”), a streetwise and acerbic engineer who can fix anything, and her brother Cullen Row (Tyler DiChiara, “The Virgin of Highland Park”), a clever transgender teen who is tired of being polite and agreeable. With the charismatic and hard-charging District Attorney Harvey Dent (Misha Collins, “Supernatural”) and the GCPD hot on their trail, Turner will rely on allies including his best friend and formidable coder Stephanie Brown (Anna Lore, “All American”), and unlikely Batman sidekick Carrie Kelley (Navia Robinson, “Raven’s Home”). But our Knights will soon learn there is a larger, more nefarious force at work within Gotham City. This team of mismatched fugitives must band together to become its next generation of saviors known as the GOTHAM KNIGHTS .

From Berlanti Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television, GOTHAM KNIGHTS is written by Chad Fiveash, James Stoteraux and Natalie Abrams. Fiveash and Stoteraux will serve as showrunners and executive produce the series alongside Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter. Abrams also serves as co-executive producer. Danny Cannon directed and served as an executive producer on the pilot, along with David Madden. GOTHAM KNIGHTS is based on characters created for DC by Bob Kane with Bill Finger."

It doesn’t sound like anything too way out there. It sounds pretty straight-forward, in fact. It sounds like something I can handle. :smiling_face:

This from the article is a major plus for me…

Due to Batman’s status in the Gotham Knights continuity, it’s becoming clear that the show will not be set in the Arrowverse. But like most of the Greg Berlanti DC shows, taking place in the larger Arrowverse Multiverse still allows for crossovers if there is a story that works for the respective series.

The Multiverse is good.

I never watched any of the other Arrowverse shows, so this not being connected to any of them is perfect for me. And if there’s no costumes, or next to no costumes, then this may be really perfect for me.

I’ll give it a try, I may like it.

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This is weird, but the premise sounds fun (if a little reminiscent of Birds of Prey).

From the poster, I thought for sure that was Lucas Till as Dick, with Jason, Karen, Donna, and Lilith behind him. Which doesn’t sound very “Gotham centric” … so I’m really excited to hear it’s instead centered around Harper, Cullen, Steph, and Carrie. Even if Turner doesn’t have any comic roots revealed in some twist, I’m willing to give it a chance once it’s on a streamable platform.

Plus Misha Collins, who might be the only thing to keep this show alive long enough to find an audience.

Curious to see how they’re going to play this version of Duela. Comic fans might assume her to be Harvey’s daughter, and of course there’s precedent for her to at least believe the Joker is her father, but that path might echo too similar to Alice, especially with Olivia Rose Keegan having a very “young Rachel Skarsten” appearance. If she was born in Arkham, it would mean her mother is likely the Bat-enemy, but why call out that her father abandoned her? Could she be a sneaky Damian-like character, left to more of Talia’s influence in this world without a bat?

Also very curious to group Harper and Cullen under “children of some of Batman’s enemies,” but not Stephanie.

Mostly I just hope they do Cullen well. It’s probably too much to hope for him to have a chance to bond with Midnighter, but he’s such an awesome character, it would be a shame to soften him up for TV and let that be what most people think he’s like in the comics.

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The teaser poster is kind of underwhelming. I’ll give the first episode a shot when it premieres in 2023 but my expectations for this show are pretty low.

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First of all, a little underwhelming. Second, I dont even know who these characters are (if they’re characters in the comics, let me know). Im not feeling the vibe here with this show. When I get a first look at a movie or show, I get really hyped for them, especially if they have a good track record. But when I dont feel that excitement the first time around, they tend to be disappointing. Happened with Batwoman, Morbius along with a few other famous disappointments. This wouldn’t surprise me if this show went under that category.

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Everyone in the show description is pulled from the comics, save for Turner Hayes (as far as we know from his name). Legacies vary, but most are fairly well established by now:

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A somewhat better image…

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EDIT: Oh wow, Carrie Kelley is the girl in the back on the left in the green top. That’s interesting.

@TheLostMidKnightSon

Yeah, I hear you on first impressions. If it doesn’t grab people right away then it probably never will. And judging by the initial reactions online, a lot of people are not really jumping out of their shoes and socks for this… :smiling_face:

I guess that’s how it goes sometimes. They try and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.

I know that I have to at least have an interest in the premise before I go past step one (and I assume that’s the case with most people). Then the trailer is the final hurdle, pretty much.

This so far has me past step one. Let’s see where it goes from there.

@keath

Yeah, all of these characters I really like. These are really good choices to me. And I guess that’s because a lot of them are who I would pick if I were creating a show like this. :smiling_face:

And I hope Turner Hayes is actually Turner Hayes. I like how he’s not from the comics, that works for me.

And that is one thing about the premise: you can change Bruce Wayne to just some billionaire…

"In the wake of a famous billionaire’s murder, his adopted son Turner Hayes… "

And change Gotham City to New York City and you can basically do the same show.

I’m not complaining about the premise, I like the premise, but it is really interchangeable.

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I hate to be a curmudgeon but… the I find the concept to be a bit tired. On this show, Batman is dead. On Batwoman, Batman is missing (and that is pretty much why there was a Batwoman to begin with). Heck the show ended with no explanation for that ■■■■. On Titans, a whole season in Gotham where Bruce Wayne doesn’t seem to have much interest in being Batman anymore, and felt severely mischaracterized in the process.

I wish they would do less of this lazy approach of the big name character being dead or missing or out of commission. It always feels like the elephant in the room to me. New characters and older ones can coexist in the same world without these shenanigans. Happens in the comics every week. Couldn’t be that hard to write. Supergirl did it and we ended up with an amazing Superman spin-off.

That’s not to say the show will be bad. I’m definitely going to check it out and may enjoy it. I just wish it didn’t rely on the death of a main DC character.

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@moro

I guess Batman is too big for TV. TV is for his sidekicks, not for him. :smiling_face:

They’ll of course do animated, but I’ll be surprised if they ever do a live-action Batman on TV again.

He’s basically the biggest thing that they have for the movies (and of course I’d argue that he’s really the only thing that they have), so TV is probably a no-no.

So he’s going to be “dead” or “out of town” when it comes to TV shows. :smiling_face:

EDIT:

And a quick rundown on the image again…

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That’s Turner front and center.

Duela Dent on his left in the green coat.

Harper Row in the back in the black and red striped top. And Cullen Row with his back turned.

And Carrie Kelley, the DARK KNIGHT RETURNS Robin, in the green top in the back on the left.

That’s the main players, I guess…

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Honestly, this is one I am not looking forward to, but will more than likely give it a shot. I would feel better about it if it was on HBO and not the CW. I think at this point DC should be beyond broadcast TV.

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Agreed. It sounds like they’re maybe trying to do the early Arrow thing and play in the comics universe without being a “comic book show” … which may or may not stick/work.

But I seriously doubt they’ll be able to resist pulling in more characters for too long.

Very true. I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually was swapped out the other direction and they took the generic billionaire son’s frame-up in NYC story and decided to plant it in Gotham. (Maybe when Berlanti got involved to produce?)

It really all comes down to how they tell the story and whether the characters are engaging. Even if they fall far from their comic counterparts. But first they have to hook people. And so far I think they’re falling in the void between hooking comic fans who for sure want to see their favorite characters and hooking teen drama fans who just want the kids-on-the-run-from-the-mob-and-the-law. They need to steer in to one or the other. And maybe they haven’t because they don’t have more than the pitch written yet, so hopefully as it develops we’ll get more details that entice.

Personally, I could go for some We Are Robin vibes where there’s this background of kids trying to be their own hero and getting themselves killed in the process, so the core five are of course wavering between “we’ll do it better” and “no, we’ll get killed too.”

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I think it’s an arbitrary line in the sand drawn by the powers that be. He’s parodied on Harley Quinn and Robot Chicken. He appears in a ton of other animated shows and straight to VOD movies. A live action Bruce Wayne appears in Titans and Gotham, along with glimpses of him in the Batsuit in both of those shows. Their approach to Batman on TV has always felt a bit silly to me. In my opinion, he doesn’t have to be dead or missing or psychologically messed up for a Batman adjacent show to work, and he doesn’t even need to appear on screen all that much.

In any case, I don’t want to derail the thread. Cool to see Carrie Kelly is in this. Wonder if she will have any history of being Robin?

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I’m intrigued by the characters chosen. Not overly optimistic (or pessimistic, just wait-and-see), but I hope it’s good even if it turns out not to be my cup of tea. Which also remains to be seen.

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“Here’s the pitch guys: no costumes. A very realistic, grounded Gotham. But at the very end of the first episode, we’ll reveal … TIME TRAVEL! Bruce is alive and only pretending to be dead, but on his future deathbed sends her back in time to make sure Tyler doesn’t take the fall for this shenanigan.”

“So you want to just make Krypton again?”

“No, it’s totally different this time because Harvey time travelled from the past to change the future and Carrie travelled from the future to prevent him from changing her past!”

“Go home, Stoteraux. You are drunk. I mean, it’s totally green lit, but you need to hydrate and sleep.”

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@moro

Quickly on this…

It is kind of interesting that they’ll do Superman in Superman & Lois, but they won’t do Batman. And it’s interesting but not surprising.

And I understand what you’re saying about glimpses of him as Batman, because that’s about all I would expect them to do. A full-on show starring Bruce Wayne as Batman is what I don’t think we’ll ever see again.

(And I guess one can argue that the Adam West Batman was “camp Batman” and not the “real Batman,” so there’s actually never really been a “real Batman” show, but, y’know, whatever… ) :smiling_face:

@keath

It really all comes down to how they tell the story and whether the characters are engaging. Even if they fall far from their comic counterparts. But first they have to hook people. And so far I think they’re falling in the void between hooking comic fans who for sure want to see their favorite characters and hooking teen drama fans who just want the kids-on-the-run-from-the-mob-and-the-law. They need to steer in to one or the other. And maybe they haven’t because they don’t have more than the pitch written yet, so hopefully as it develops we’ll get more details that entice.

Yeah, I was a bit surprised at a lot of the fan reaction.

Then again, I didn’t have any expectation of the show to begin with, because I literally didn’t start following what the show was even about until today. :smiling_face:

It was just another CW show to me. Then today’s news happened, and I read what it was about, and it was like, “Oh wow… I didn’t know that.” :smiling_face:

I guess some or a lot of the fans who are put off were expecting a Marvel kind of show or something? Basically a straight-up super-hero show. And what it looks to be is like what you said, a “kids-on-the-run-from-the-mob-and-the-law” teen drama show; with a bit of a Batman dressing to it.

I haven’t watched it, but I assume Titans on HBO Max is a straight-up super-hero show, and this Gotham Knights doesn’t seem like it’s going to be like that at all.

It feels like it’s for people who don’t want a straight-up super-hero show (because it seems like every other week there’s a new one), but maybe want a show with some super-hero elements to it just for kicks.

Or something like that…

And I may just be speaking for myself. :smiling_face:

Personally, I could go for some We Are Robin vibes where there’s this background of kids trying to be their own hero and getting themselves killed in the process, so the core five are of course wavering between “we’ll do it better” and “no, we’ll get killed too.”

With a bit of retooling this could be a “We Are Robin” show.

In another thread the other week I was saying I’d want to see a We Are Robin show on HBO Max, and I was saying just throw a Carrie Kelley in there for the hell of it.

Little did I know that Gotham Knights was going to have a Carrie Kelley in it just for the hell of it. :smiling_face:

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I’m in exactly the same boat. I totally missed this thread back in December and am just catching up now.

Yeah, that’s the vibe I’m getting from comic fans. Like, this isn’t a comic book show, so much as it’s set in a comic book world, but they want a comic book show. (Or a video game show, which is a whole different bin of potentially toxic fans.) I think the same thing happened with Riverdale - from episode 1 it was clearly not an adaptation of any comic book, but loosely took the shape of the characters and did it’s own thing. While that might not have hooked the audience you might expect from a straight adaptation, it found an audience. I’m hoping Gotham Knights can do the same. (Whether or not I’m a part of that audience.)

Titans is definitely more superhero adjacent that Gotham Knights sounds like it’s going to be. But it’s surprisingly light on the deep tights vibe. It has a similar sort of “post-capes world” to it, but instead of being dead, it’s more a disillusion (of three generations).

You are a prophet! Or you deserve a cut of the profit. Prophet profit!

(Now I really want your We Are Robin show to happen, please.)

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I don’t much follow the Batfamily, but Carrie Kelley is my wife’s favorite Robin. Makes her my stepfavorite, I guess.

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Thank you. I’m not sure how I missed Harvey Dent in the description lol

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Couldn’t they have at least kept Carrie’s glasses? Also, last I knew Cullen row was just gay and not trans. it might be better if this was closer to the game.

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Why?

It has nothing to do with the game.

Reading the description, this sounds like a DC ‘mashup’ of Marvel’s The Runaways and The Gifted, which intrigues me.

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