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Terence Winter is leaving Gotham City.
The Boardwalk Empire creator, who was poised to write and serve as showrunner on Matt Reeves’ TV spinoff of The Batman has departed the HBO Max series. Sources say creative differences are to blame for the split as Winter’s vision for the drama did not match what Reeves and other producers had in mind. A search is under way for a new showrunner for the untitled drama.
HBO Max and studio Warner Bros. Television declined comment.
Picked up straight to series in July and designed as a companion TV series to go alongside The Batman, the drama is set in the world Reeves is creating for The Batman feature film and will build upon the pic’s examination of the anatomy of corruption in Gotham City. It ultimately will launch a new Batman universe across multiple platforms and extends the world from the movie and characters of Gotham. It’s unclear of The Batman stars Robert Pattinson (Batman/Bruce Wayne) and Jeffrey Wright (police commissioner James Gordon) will appear in the HBO Max offshoot.
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The series is formally untitled but has been going by the working title of Gotham Central, a nod to writers Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka’s police procedural comic and GCPD. The series hails from Warner Bros. Television, where Reeves’ 6th and Idaho banner is under a rich overall deal. The Batman producer Dylan Clark. 6th & Idaho’s Daniel Pipski and Adam Kassan also exec produce, while Rafi Crohn is a co-EP.
In an August event promoting The Batman, Reeves said the HBO Max offering is told from a crooked cop’s point of view and serves as a prequel to his Batman Year Two movie while being set in Batman Year One when a “masked vigilante … starts to unsettle the city.” “The story is actually a battle for his soul,” Reeves said at DC FanDome.
The Batman has been one of many feature films whose release date has been pushed multiple times amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. It is currently slated for a theatrical bow on March 4, 2022.
Winter, meanwhile, co-created HBO’s Vinyl and departed the series ahead of its planned second season after creative differences. The season two renewal was ultimately reversed and the show canceled after one low-rated season. More recently, Winter signed on oversee the creative on a Dial M for Murder anthology that is in the works at MGM/UA Television. Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina) is also exec producing and being eyed to star in the female-focused anthology. The former The Sopranos scribe is also prepping a mob drama for Showtime.
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