Fox’s Gotham returned Monday night and gave us a look at what Arkham Asylum used be (check out our recap). Over at Voices From Krypton, filmmaker Harry Locke IV reveals the plans for another Gotham series that never made it to air.
The synopsis:
A world asphyxiating on its own blood and moral depravity, GOTHAM thrusts us into a community at its breaking point, barreling headlong into urban warfare with the greatest gallery of rogues known to man smelling blood in the water. Winter is upon the dark city, and its citizens are being ushered towards an inevitable confrontation against a most vicious threat… their own sins.
Sounds a lot like the Gotham we’re seeing now on Fox, right? Turns out the series would have been very different. Here are some interesting details:
1. It wasn’t a prequel
Batman is already well established in this world, as are villains like The Joker, Harley Quinn, The Riddler, Black Mask and more.
2. Batman wasn’t the main character
Olivia Sage, an entirely new character, was the focus. Described as “a struggling 21-year-old physics student,” she is the daughter of a Gotham police officer and returns home “following the grisly murder of her younger sister Amber.” Batman existed more in the periphery as an “unpredictable” and “looming presence.” So presumably he would have shown up from time to time.
3. Olivia would’ve teamed up with The Riddler
The Riddler befriended Olivia’s sister before her murder, “charmed by the girl’s intellect” having bonded over a game of chess. “Furious at her death, he forms a pact with Olivia, to take calculated revenge against his rivals the Falcone crime family and Black Mask.”
4. The Fox’s Gotham was this Gotham’s demise
Locke’s Gotham had support from producers and a showrunner from Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman but before he was able to pitch it to Warner Bros. executives, “the news had already been delivered that the Bruno Heller-led project of the same title was announced with a straight-to-series order, leaving my vision effectively defunct.”
Personally, I would have preferred this vision of Gotham. Not only because Olivia’s story sounds like Veronica Mars set inside the Batman universe, but because it wasn’t another origin story. It would’ve been fun to see a fully-realized Batman from the point of view of someone who wasn’t Batman.
Head over to Voices From Krypton for more plot details and character outlines.
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