Terence Winter has opened up about the demise of the Gotham City Police series he was supposed to work on at HBO.
It’s been some time since we heard anything about the Gotham City Police Department project that Terrence Winter (Boardwalk Empire) signed on to as showrunner. It was announced in Nov. 2020 that he had left the series, but it was never made entirely clear why.
In a new interview on the Bingeworthy podcast, he has now opened up somewhat about his departure and what the series was supposed to be about.
Winter said of the concept of the show, “It was going to have that [‘70s] feel. It was going to be a present-day cop who is like a third-generation Gotham City cop and Gotham City was largely corrupt. And this is the guy we meet in the present day who’s realizing that he’s kind of on the wrong side. The Batman was somebody that lived in that world, but you never really saw him. And it was really all about the police department and sort of this guy.”
As to what happened to the show, Winter said that Matt Reeves “wasn’t feeling it.”
While the show was ultimately scrapped, Winter did have some thoughts on the overall state of TV as related to The Batman and The Penguin in particular. “That’s great, good for them. Like I said, you know, it was Matt’s idea originally, and, you know, more power to [him]. Sometimes, you’re in sync creatively; sometimes, you’re not. Or you get off on the wrong foot thinking, ‘Oh, we should do this but you know what, this is just not really working.’ Also, because there was Gotham, the show Gotham certainly took place in the Gotham City Police Department. [It] kind of stepped on the toes of our idea a little bit, even though ours was going to be totally very different. I think ‘Penguin’ is great. I think they did a great job.”
The Penguin is currently airing on HBO.