Gotham fans still have one more season of Batman-adjacent insanity to enjoy before that show goes off into the dark night, but another prequel about the Caped Crusader’s supporting cast is already in the works. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Epix has just ordered 10 episodes of Pennyworth, a show dedicated to Batman’s butler Alfred when he first began working for Bruce Wayne’s father. The show will emphasize Alfred’s past as a former British SAS officer living in 1960s London, so it will be as far removed from the classic Batman mythology as possible while still making room for a British guy to say things like “Of course, Mr. Wayne” and “That Gotham place sure could use a masked vigilante to clean up the streets with a brutal mix of martial arts, high-tech gadgets, and rodent-themed pageantry.”
Pennyworth comes from the team behind Gotham, including showrunner Bruno Heller, but it will be unrelated to Fox’s show beyond the tenuous connection to the Batman stuff. That’s pretty much all we know, but it seems safe to assume that—like on Gotham—some pre-Batman versions of recognizable DC Comics heroes and villains will pop up from time to time. Mob boss Carmine Falcone seems like an easy one, but who says Jim Gordon’s father or Ra’s al Ghul won’t make a stop in London? They could even throw in a time travel angle like Syfy’s Krypton and have Booster Gold stop by to crack jokes about the future.