Gotham showrunner reveals more show details…

Gotham is coming and with it comes more and more info on just what the series will be… and we are very excited, despite it essentially being a Batman series without Batman.

Showrunner Bruno Heller has been chatting about the series at the TCAs this weekend and he talked about the pilot which has been well reviewed so far by those lucky enough to see it, with the only criticism being that there’s too much jammed into it: “You kind of have to frontload the pilot with the best you’ve got,” he said

“As the show rolls on, we’ll be far more careful with how we roll out the villains and in what way… These are the origin stories of these guys. The Penguin comes fully fledged since you have to show your best cards up front, but as we go on, a slower roll out.”

He talks about the choice to make it focus on James Gordon, rather than the Dark Knight: “Gordon is the moral linchpin of the show – he’s the guy that creates Batman, or gives Batman permission to exist in that world. This is the journey of a man who’s very much about law and order to someone who accepts this dark vigilante… [It’s a story of] how do you deal with crime of this level when there are no superheroes? When ordinary men and women are dealing with the struggle waiting for a savior. It’s about men and women and not about superheroes and that’s the more interesting story.”

The question of toying with the established Batman mythos came up too: “we won’t break the canonical iron truths of the Batman mythology, but issues of chronology, we will play with.” 

But, overall, the tone will not be comic-book but rather it will be a gritty, real-world police drama: “This is a crime story and crime is violence, essentially. We’re all very aware that we’re telling a crime story to a general audience, Fox is right on top of that and very aware of the type of audience they’re trying to go for… the benchmark of what is acceptable violence has risen, it’s hard for any individual show to calibrate that.”

The cast includes Ben McKenzie as James Gordon, Donal Logue as Harvey Bullock, David Mazouz as Bruce Wayne, Camren Bicondova as Selina Kyle, Grayson McCouch and Brette Taylor as Thomas and Martha Wayne, Robin Lord Taylor as Oswald Cobblepot, Sean Pertwee as Alfred Pennyworth, Erin Richards as Gordon’s fiancee, Barbara Kean, Zabryna Guevara as Gordon’s boss at the GCPD, Captain Essen, Victoria Cartagena will play detective Renee Montoya, Andrew Stewart Jones will play detective Crispus Allen, Jada Pinkett Smith as Fish Mooney, Drew Powell as Butch Gilzean and Cory Michael Smith as Edward Nigma.

Gotham premieres this fall on FOX.

Source: Darkhorizons