It looks like Ben Affleck playing Batman is not the only surprising and significant 'Dark Knight' related news. FOX has won an apparent bidding war to capture 'Gotham', a new thriller by The Mentalist helmer Bruno Heller which is built around the early years of James Gordon, the man who will become the commissioner of Gotham City and one of Batman's closest allies. The series will see Gordon as a detective within the Gotham City Police Department and possibly encountering early incarnations of the foes who will one day give him and Bruce wayne's alter-ego so much trouble. It is not believed that Batman or Wayne will feature in the timeline of the series.
The idea of a Gotham City-based show has been doing the rounds for years, getting significant traction in the last year given the end of the Christopher Nolan trilogy and the chance to build something new from the ground up - though because it is set in a much earlier time-frame there appears no chance to connect it with any of the forthcoming big screen plans.
Heller has promsied that 'Red John' the main antagonist and secretive serial killer in The Mentalist will be unmasked and dealt with this season, making it a key time for the series. Heller is also already connected with Red, a drama about the colonisation of Mars which looks likely to appear on The CW in 2014, so this is his second major deal in as many months. The CW is already the home of another major DC character Oliver Queen / Green Arrow in Arrow which is entering its second season and there are rumours that it is still seeking a way to move forward with Amazon, basd around the character of Wonder Woman...
