DCU Viewers Left Disappointed by Arkham TV Update

Unsurprisingly, a previously announced tie-in to the 2022 DC film The Batman has been confirmed to be dead in the water by James Gunn himself. I say “unsurprisingly” because the writing has been on the wall for this one for quite some time.

If you ask me, the DCU is off to a pretty great start. I’m sure the Zack Snyder fans wouldn’t agree with me there, but to each their own.

However, even though James Gunn seems to have a very malleable approach to crafting the new DC film universe, some projects have fallen by the wayside in the process. Some of said projects are ones that Gunn announced himself, whereas others are ones that he inherited when he took on the position of co-CEO at Warner Bros. back in 2022.

One such project is an Arkham Asylum-focused spin-off for The Batman, which was also previously going to be a Gotham PD-focused spin-off when it was originally announced.

As detailed in an interview with BobaTalks (via ComicBook), James Gunn revealed that the series isn’t “being developed by anyone right now”, and has presumably been abandoned– at least for the time being.

Warner Bros Games

“There’s hope, sure. But that isn’t something that’s being developed by anyone right now,” Gunn replied, when asked about the series’ progress.

Gunn wasn’t too detailed or forthcoming as to why they’re no longer moving forward with the project, simply stating that “You know, it just didn’t work” when pressed for more details.

As I alluded to earlier, we essentially knew this was the case some time ago. The series has been in a sort of limbo ever since it was first announced as a Gotham PD story back in 2020. The Batman's director, Matt Reeves, then followed up in 2022, stating that the series had instead pivoted into an Arkham Asylum-focused story.

And then, we basically heard nothing else until 2024, when Variety published a report announcing that the show was no longer moving forward.

Hopefully, it’s something that DC intends to eventually take another stab at in the future, potentially following the release of The Batman Part II in 2027, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.

It’s clear that it’s not a priority for Warner Bros at the moment, which makes sense considering that Reeves’ The Batman universe isn’t directly attached to the mainline continuity of the DCU.

Either way, we better get a second season of The Penguin. Warner Bros would be silly not to follow up on one of the best superhero TV shows of the last decade.