What was James Gunn’s Arkham Asylum TV show update?
Speaking to BobaTalks in a recent interview with the YouTuber, Gunn was asked about Reeves’ show, which was originally set to be a spin-off to The Batman and focus on the Gotham City Police Department. Gunn was asked if there were any hopes for the show to come back, and while he didn’t say no, his answer all but shut the door on it.
“Hope? Sure. But that isn’t something that’s being developed by anyone right now. You know? Just didn’t work,” said Gunn.
The show, which was originally rumored to be titled GCPD, went through many changes. Originally described as a drama about the GCPD, reports suggested that Reeves then spun those plans into a separate project that would’ve focused on the iconic asylum that houses many of Batman’s most legendary foes.
For whatever reason, the show never materialized and Reeves ended up working on the award-winning and critically acclaimed series The Penguin instead. Whether or not Reeves will continue that series, or perhaps work on another DC project for Gunn, is unknown as of now. Currently, Reeves is working on the follow-up to The Batman, The Batman: Part II, which is set to release in theaters on October 1, 2027.
Originally reported by Anthony Nash for SuperHeroHype.
In another life, we’d all be talking about The Batman Part II this weekend. The sequel to Matt Reeves’ 2022 hit was first meant for October 3, 2025, only to be repeatedly put off by the Hollywood strikes and other woes. It’s now coming October 1, 2027, and whether it lands that release date or not, fans are waiting with bated breath to learn anything they can about the film. Will it introduce Robin? Are the Court of Owls the villain, or is it Mr. Freeze? Will the powers that be make Robert Pattinson the Batman of the newly launched DC Universe?
Demand for answers escalated to the point DC boss James Gunn has played defense for Reeves a handful of times, at one point telling people to leave the man alone as he works on the script.
Rampant speculation and anticipation have always been part of fandoms, particularly for superheroes. But it’s safe to say it’s grown into a larger beast over the years thanks to leaks and rumors from scoopers implying or outright stating what they’ve learned on social media, rarely with anyone official pushing back on what’s going out and being shared by those eager to hear any and everything related to their favorite thing.
Some discoveries end up being true, others wildly incorrect. Either way, they do their job keeping something in the conversation when the official channels aren’t doing what some would consider their due diligence and providing a frequent stream of updates. Any silence that lasts longer than a couple of days is a sign that the upcoming project is washed and its creators have lost their spark or that it’s been quietly canceled.
Image: Insomniac Games/PlayStation
There’s no point in pretending The Batman Part II or Insomniac’s Wolverine game—which similarly went without years of any news before being officially unveiled in late September, following the studio being hacked in 2024—would face quiet ends. WB and Sony are loud companies, and if something of that stature had been gutted, we’d have known about it by now.
But the fear of them going away exists thanks to both companies (and plenty more) killing off projects like Batgirl, Naughty Dog’s multiplayer-focused Last of Us spinoff, and too many more to count. Depending on who you ask, the fear of not knowing something is coming is worse than knowing it’ll never come, as made clear by Hollow Knight: Silksongbecoming a meme thanks to its dubious existence from 2018 up until this past August.
After years of what fans would consider a feast of great IP works—and the occasional nibble on decent enough ones—this string of cancellations in recent years has left a sense of resentment and betrayal in their wake. It’s one thing to see Leslie Grace in Batgirl’s Burnside costume and hear that movie was basically done before its untimely end. It’s another to get vague ideas of what a game’s developer is intending or see minutes’ worth of footage at a major showcase, as we saw with Monolith’s Wonder Woman and The Initiative’s Perfect Dark.
Between cancelled movies and games, news of the latter stings so much more thanks to the layoffs that follow in the immediate aftermath and the post-cancellation news revealing development was roughin some shape or form, or the developer’s parent company wasn’t willing to see the project through to the end. All the fan love in the world can work wonders, but it can’t do anything against “market conditions,” crunch, or corporations’ growing interest in AI.
At the end of the 2010s, io9 wrote about how fandoms became gradually intertwined with the corporations that own the IP they love. Five years into the ’20s, and fandoms are now seeing the backlash of that synthesis by being cursed with knowledge. Many fans have taken it upon themselves to know everything about a game, movie, show, or artist and end up spiraling should news not emerge or arrive with potentially worrying implications. They have to know who’s involved with the project from top to bottom and how it’s progressing so they know which creatives to rally support or disdain for, or if they need to, shake those creators back to life if their pulse starts to fade.
The fixation on the things to come, like The Batman Part II and Wolverine, will not end. We’re already seeing this with a TikTok creator’s alleged trip to Scotland to demand Rockstar North give more info, put out a new trailer, and say something about May 2026’s Grand Theft Auto 6: to be a fan of something is to constantly want something, then look forward to the next big thing on the horizon.
In that respect, Reeves and company should take as much time as they need on Batman II—unless something catastrophic happens, it’s not like this epic crime saga is in danger of truly losing its momentum or place in the superhero landscape.
On August 22, 2020, Warner Bros. held its first-ever DC FanDome, a weekend-long virtual event meant to make up for that year’s San Diego Comic-Con, which was canceled due to the pandemic. If you’ve ever followed big industry events like the Game Awards or… well, Comic-Con, you know they often come with a big trailer or two that’s meant to make it all worth it. And for WB, the big showcase for its inaugural, short-lived event was the very first look at Matt Reeves’ The Batman.
Trailers for superhero movies have gradually become more and more of a big deal, whether they’re telegraphed in advance, leaked, or appear just out of the blue. The Batman already caught the internet’s eye with casting Twilight alum Robert Pattinson in the lead role, and excitement truly began to grow once Reeves showed the actor in his Batsuit and the most car-looking Batmobile in years.
It also didn’t hurt that this was the first solo Bat-movie in nearly a decade and technically the true start of WB’s plans to dabble around with a cinematic multiverse that kept this Batman in his own world away from other goings-on at the time.
Within 24 hours, that teaser amassed over 31 million views, and while those numbers are short in the grand scheme, it did its job in getting people talking about Batman again. If online circles weren’t discussing its darkness in comparison to the Nolan films, they were gushing over Colin Farrell’s makeup job as Penguin or listening to Nirvana’s “Something in the Way” on repeat. For a movie that was openly marketing itself back then as still in the works, it won enough of the internet over right away that they were willing to follow Reeves to hell if it meant getting to see this on the big screen.
Had things gone to plan, The Batman would’ve come out in June 2021, but the pandemic forced a readjustment. The Batman was a quarter into production when it was indefinitely paused for most of 2020, during which the film’s dialect coach Andrew Jack passed away from covid and Pattinson himself tested positive just days after work resumed again. As a result, things were basically radio silent until late 2021, when the film basically reintroduced itself with a new trailer that kept the mood and song but featured more bombast and a great idea of what the movie would be about. On just one of WB’s YouTube accounts, it’s gotten over 65 million views and closes on a shot that’ll likely define Reeves’ entire Batman tenure. If there were any doubts that people lost interest in this movie because of the pandemic, that second trailer sure proved that wrong.
Since that first trailer came and went, The Batman (which hit theaters March 4, 2022) has continued to have a hold on the internet, which has been waiting impatiently for its sequel. Like its predecessor, The Batman Part II has had no shortage of production problems and delays, to the degree that DC Studios head James Gunn politely (but firmly) told people to back off Reeves. The second movie isn’t due for another two years and change and only recently entered pre-production—but when the first proper look at that one hits, expect comparisons between it and its predecessor’s first trailer as fans once again prepare to fall in love with Reeves’ interpretation of DC’s ever-brooding leading man.
We all hoped that HBO’s The Penguin would be good but did anyone actually expect it to be this good? The people behind the scenes did and now, with the show enjoying success, it could mean just the beginning for Batman’s bad guys appearing on HBO.
“I can tell you this, we would love to be able to do more. But I can also say that we are already talking to HBO about [more],” executive producer Matt Reeves told the Wrap. “The opportunity of being able to then on HBO, go and explore characters that wouldn’t be able to have that kind of real estate creatively, as we were able to do with Oz [Cobb, Colin Farrell’s character], that is something that we are talking to HBO about. They’re very excited about that idea. That’s something that we really, really hope we’re going to be able to do.”
“We’ve got The Batman. We’ve got The Penguin. And who knows what’s next,” Reeves added.
What’s actually next is The Batman Part II which Reeves is prepping for a 2025 shoot and 2026 release. That film will continue the story of The Penguin much like The Penguin continued the story of The Batman and Reeves admits making sure it all fit was difficult.
“It’s this thing where you’re trying to organize it in such a way that the movie hands off to the show,” Reeves said. “We change point-of-view. We do something we can’t have any room really to do at this level in the movies, go on a long-form, deep-dive into Oz’s character, but then hand back off to the next movie and have him enter that story. There was a little bit of air traffic control to manage that, but all of it was to create the space then that would allow us to dig deeply into that character in the way that [showrunner] Lauren [LeFranc] did.”
All of which is to say, if a second Bat-villain show would happen, it seems like it would happen after The Batman Part II. That assumption makes speculation more difficult because, though we know for sure Penguin is in the film, and we assume Riddler (Paul Dano), Catwoman (Zoe Kravitz), and Joker (Barry Keoghan) are in it too, Reeves is sure to introduce new villains as well. And Batman certainly has plenty of those to go around.
You have to imagine, though, if HBO is interested in exploring another Batman villain in long form, it would have to be one with name recognition. Since Penguin has his show and Riddler and Catwoman were explored in the first movie, who else is left? The company wouldn’t dare do a Joker show after what just happened with Joker: Folie à Deux would it? Is there anyone else big enough?
Reports of a game set in the universe of Matt Reeves’ The Batmanare, apparently, greatly exaggerated. The internet was swirling with rumors of such a game’s existence on the morning of August 30, with many hoping that such a project was real. However, none other than James Gunn, the head of DC films, weighed in to set the record state.
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The rumors stem from an article on news site Puckdiscussing the state of Warner Bros. and the outlook of its CEO, David Zaslav, on selling assets. The article states that former Warner Bros. parent company AT&T decided against selling the Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment division responsible for games because it was “too valuable to unload.” The article goes on to claim that, in addition to the upcoming Penguin HBO show, there is a game in development “rooted in the 2022 The Batman movie.” This one line made fans theorize on what this could be, and if the game itself would be more closely tied to the movie or the Colin Farrell series. If true, this would be the first Batman game set in the Reeves’ universe. However, it seems the game does not actually exist.
On social media site Threads, a user directly asked James Gunn if there was any accuracy to the rumors. Gunn succinctly shut them down by saying, “Sadly there is no truth to this whatsoever.” For hopeful fans, though, the use of “sadly” may suggest that he does hope a project like this will exist at some point. Batman fans are long overdue for another great game starring the caped crusader. 2025 will mark the tenth anniversary of Batman: Arkham Knight’s release, which is arguably the last good Batman game Warner Bros. has released. If you are really craving another Batman game, however, the VR title Batman: Arkham Shadowis set to release this fall, and it actually looks kind of good! Still, hope springs eternal for another amazing AAA Batman game.
Matt Reeves started to create a whole universe with the release of 2022’s The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson as the Caped Crusader.
The filmmaker is expanding the world with The Penguin, an HBO original series centered on Colin Farrell’s Oz Cobb, which will premiere on the premium cable network and Max in September.
In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Reeves explains why two series he had been developing, set in what he calls the Batman Epic Crime Saga, had been canceled for now.
“As we were writing the movie [The Batman], I was like, ‘Hey, you know what? I think there are some cool shows that we could do,” Reeves told EW. “It was actually why I wanted to make our deal at Warner Bros.”
Reeves and producing partner Dylan Clark had been working on a couple of series, one focusing on the Gotham Police Department and a second set in the Arkham Asylum. HBO executives gave Reeves notes and the filmmaker said that some elements will be making it into The Penguin.
“They were like, ‘We like what you’re doing, and we want to lean harder into the marquee characters,’” Reeves said.
He continued, “What’s interesting is that, in the movie, the big red herring of the story is it seems like the person they’re looking for, that the Riddler’s pointing to must be the Penguin, some kind of informant. This movie creates a power vacuum, and because Penguin is so underestimated, people don’t really see who he is.”
Reeves said he “wanted it to be, not in a grandiose way, but in a mythic Shakespearean way, this kind of great tale.”
Before Robert Pattinson donned the cowl in 2022’s The Batman, it was revealed director Matt Reeves and Sopranos’ Terrence Winter were working on a TV spinoff focused on Gotham City’s police department. Over time, the show seemingly evolved to focus on mainstay Batman location Arkham Asylum, but news on it has been nonexistent for two years. Now, it seems like that show may not make it to fruition–or at least, not in the form it was originally pitched to the public.
Per Variety, the series won’t be going forward over at Max, or at least the one conceived by Antonio Campos. He signed on for the series back in 2022, months after its Arkham pivot was revealed. The outlet acknowledged that while this version of the show has been rejected, there’s a chance that a different series focused on the Asylum or Gotham’s finest could emerge in the aftermath. Regarless, it’s been a tumultuous road for this show: it was originally conceived as being set a year prior to The Batman. Months later, Winter left the project, after which Giri/Haji creator Joe Barton stepped in.
After James Gunn and Peter Safran were inducted as the new DC Films heads, Gunn said the Arkham show would be set in the same universe as the upcoming movies, rather than the world of The Batman. Presumably, that’ll still hold true if a new version of the series ever crops up. Reeves’ isolated Batman-verse won’t be bereft of TV, though: a spinoff focused on Colin Farrell’s scene stealer Penguin will headline his own titular series, which The Hollywood Reporter claims will begin airing on September 8. Mr. Battinson will return to the silver screen with The Batman Part II (again directed by Reeves), with a current release date of October 2, 2026.
While the DC fans have had a fabulous experience watching The Batman, they might not get to see the highly anticipated Arkham Asylum TV series. A few new reports suggest that the series is not moving forward at Max.
Arkham Asylum would have been set in the same universe as Robert Pattinson’s The Batman.
Arkham Asylum not moving forward
The fans of Detective Comics were eagerly waiting for a new TV series that brought tales from a very famous place in the world of Batman. The Arkham Asylum show that made headlines in 2022 is now being reported to have been canceled.
According to reports published by Variety in October 2022, Antonio Campos was chosen to work on the series as a writer and showrunner. However, the same publication has now reported that Campos’s version will not move forward, according to a source close to the development of the series at Max.
The same source, however, has noted that a new project might eventually focus on the infamous Gotham City asylum.
The Arkham Asylum series that was in talks for a while until now was supposed to be set in the same world in which Matt Reeves’ The Batman took place.
About Arkham Asylum
Primarily, the show was announced in July 2020, but at that time, the series focused on the storyline of Gotham PD that was seen in 2022’s The Batman. Back then, Terrence Winter was chosen to write the series and was also set to act as an executive producer for the planned show.
However, creative differences led to his exit from the series in November 2020. Later, Joe Barton, the creator of Giri/Haji, came on board to write for the series, but Warner Bros. decided to part ways with him as well.
In an interview that took place in 2022, Matt Reeves stated that the Gotham PD show had been canceled and that a story was in process for the Arkham Asylum series.
At that time, the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes director mentioned that the series would be like a “horror movie or a haunted house that is Arkham.”
Everything in the DC Universe is kind of up in the air right now. Fortunately, that doesn’t include the follow-up to Matt Reeves’ highly-praised The Batman. Despite the massive restructuring going on after the merger between Warner Bros. and Discovery, it seems like this franchise is safe.
One couldn’t be blamed for being a bit worried, after major projects like Wonder Woman 3 were shelved. Ever since James Gunn took over the helm at DC, shakeups have been happening left and right. Henry Cavill won’t be returning as Superman, and Black Adam is no longer the central figure that the DC Universe will be built around. They’re working with a new 10-year plan.
The Batman was an immediate hit, bringing in about $770 million dollars worldwide. It also laid the foundation for a new Batman franchise, once again taking place in a grounded and gritty universe. Luckily, it felt fresh enough to bring people out to the theaters in droves. But what of a sequel?
Reeves and others have been working on a few different spin-offs, none of which have come to fruition first. First of all, is a spinoff TV series about the Penguin starring Colin Farrell. The second is a spinoff which was initially about the Gotham City Police Department, although recently, it may have morphed into a show about Arkham Asylum. But none of these are really sequels involving Batman himself.
While he was pretty tight-lipped about plot details or a release timeline, Matt Reeves recently spoke with a writer at Collider. When asked if he was shooting any films this year, he replied, almost hesitant to reveal much…
I’m not going to answer that question, but we are working on a movie. I’ll put it to you that way. We’re deep in it and my partner and I are writing, Mattson [Tomlin] and I are writing, and it’s really exciting, and I’m really excited about what we’re doing.
He also shared his admiration for his lead actor, Robert Pattinson, saying: that he was “really excited to be doing that with Rob, because I just think he’s such a special person and actor.”
The next DC movie, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, opens in theaters on March 17.
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