Matt Reeves says HBO Max’s The Batman spin-off about Gotham's cops is on hold

With today’s superhero franchise-obsessed film industry, it’s rare to see a hit comic book movie that isn’t immediately setting up future sequels and crossovers and an entire cinematic universe. And yet, that’s how
The Batman director Matt Reeves has spent the weekend since his movie came out, first by insisting that a certain scene late in the movie is not a Marvel-style tease for the next The Batman and now by revealing—on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, via Variety—that the HBO Max spin-off of The Batman focusing on the police of Gotham city has been “put on hold.”

This news is not especially surprising if you’ve been following HBO Max’s attempts to make The Batman spin-offs, since the other spin-off that’s in the works has Colin Farrell attached to reprise his role as The Penguin and just… seems like a better idea in general.

The Gotham PD show would’ve been a prequel, the “year one” to the movie’s “year two,” and would’ve focused on corrupt cops and Jeffrey Wright’s Jim Gordon as they deal with the sudden appearance of this The Batman guy, which is the same basic premise as Fox’s Gotham (at least the later seasons when lil’ Bruce Wayne started to grow up).

It sounds like the sort of spin-off you’d make if you have to make a spin-off, which is why it doesn’t have the same pop as a show all about The Penguin and probably why it’s not currently moving forward. But, as Reeves teased over the weekend when he shot down those sequel theories, he is also considering a separate HBO Max spin-off that would be set in Akrham Asylum, which—based only on the fact that it seems to be something he came up with after making the movie and realizing what other stories he could tell in this universe—also seems like a better idea than the GCPD pitch.