Terence Winter Talks Shelved Gotham City PD Series

Writer Terrence Winter has shared details of the Gotham PD series that could have been joining Matt Reeves’ The Batman universe. The world that Matt Reeves is developing recently expanded with the highly praised The Penguin. The series will bridge the gap between The Batman and the upcoming sequel, The Batman – Part II, which is expected to open in theaters on October 2, 2026. Now dubbed “The Epic Crime Saga,” Matt Reeves originally had more plans beyond The Penguin as a series centered around the Gotham City Police Department titled GCPD, and Arkham Asylum were announced, yet both series were eventually scrapped.

Winter, the creator of HBO’s hit mob series Boardwalk Empire and also a writer on Martin Scorsese’s 2013 hit The Wolf of Wall Street, developed GCPD before the plan was scrapped. Winter recently appeared on The Playlist’s Bingeworthy podcast to promote the latest season of his hit series Tulsa King, and he touched on his vision for GCPD and why the project fell through. Winter imagined a 1970s-style cop story, one that would explore various generations working within the GCPD and exploring the corruption running through Gotham City. Winter explained:

“The idea was that we were going to do a 1970s cop show— something that felt like Sidney Lumet’s

1981 crime and police drama ‘Prince of the City,’ but in the Gotham City Police Department. 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, you know, his grandfather, his dad, and, you know, 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.

I worked on it for a while. And ultimately, you know, Matt wasn’t feeling it. And I left; I know they brought in another guy after me I can’t remember his name, the guy who did ‘
Tokyo Vice.
’
[Editor Note: It was Joe Barton, who did not work on Toyko Vice but instead did The Lazarus Project].
He worked for a while on it, but that didn’t go anywhere. I have no idea what he did. And then I read about ‘The Penguin.’ and, you know, that’s great, good for them,

It seems that while the idea appeared to be a solid one, and would certainly have fit within the world Reeves is crafting, sometimes things just don’t play out as expected. Winter added:

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 and go, Oh, you know what, this is just not really working.’ Also, because there was Gotham, the show Gotham certainly took place in New York City, in the Gotham City Police Department, rather. [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 agree with you. I think they did a great job.”

The Road That Almost Led to the GCPD

GCPD was first announced in July 2020, two years before The Batman even opened in theaters. The series was pitched as a prequel to The Batman, exploring Batman’s first year as a crime fighter through the events of the Gotham City Police Department. While Winter was part of the series when it was announced, he later departed and was replaced by Joe Barton before the project was scrapped and put on hold. Attention shifted to focus on the Arkham Asylum series, as Warner Bros. was more interested in exploring different Batman villains. While Arkham Asylum seemed to replace GCPD, in July 2024, it was confirmed that both Arkham Asylum and GCPD had been scrapped, with The Penguin currently the only confirmed spin-off of The Batman.

There was clearly some hesitation on how much GCPD might have overlapped with Gotham, which ran on Fox for five seasons from September 22, 2014, to April 25, 2019. While Gotham and GCPD might have had similar pitches on paper, Gotham notably focused on a young James Gordon right after the death of Bruce Wayne’s parents, and audiences got to see the rise of various Batman villains, including the Penguin.

Part of the creative difficulties developing GCPD was the major public discussion centered around the depiction of police in media, particularly following the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. GCPD‘s selling point of exploring Gotham’s corrupt police force at a time when faith in the police was at an all-time low just seemed like the wrong show at the wrong time.