Fox's 'Gotham' TV Series Will Feature Bruce Wayne and Villains Like The Joker and Catwoman

Well, this is a confusing turn of events. Despite initial reports that Fox's Gotham TV series would be a Batman prequel focusing on Commissioner James Gordon, it looks like Bruce Wayne and Batman's classic villains will actually be the series' focus.

Fox Entertainment Chairman Kevin Reilly broke the news on Monday, telling The Hollywood Reporter, "This is not one of the things where you bought a franchise and then none of the characters people know. ... We will follow Bruce Wayne right up until the point where he gets interesting."

According to THR, Reilly said Gotham would be an origin story for Bruce and also alluded to villains like The Joker, Catwoman and the Riddler showing appearing, while "the plan is for the series to ultimately end with Bruce Wayne putting on the cape and becoming Batman — much as Smallville did with Superman."

Last month, Popculturology's Charlie Bielinski broke down some issues facing Gotham, noting that supervillains in a pre-Batman age would be one of the biggest. "The problem is that even if we encounter some of Batman's most-feared foes in the run of this show, it will be difficult to explain how the police department can handle supervillains," Bielinski said. "If none of Batman's rogues show up in this show, then all it becomes is another cop show with the most-famous comic book cop patrolling one of the most-famous fictional comic book cities sans superheroes and supervillains, which doesn’t sound very promising."

Well, it doesn't look like Gotham is another cop show now, but how will they explain what guys like The Joker are doing running around Gotham before Bruce Wayne becomes Batman?

It also doesn't seem like Reilly has any stake in tying Gotham into Warner Bros.'s Justice League franchise, which in a world where Marvel is going to have an ABC series and several Netflix series all flowing into the Marvel Cinematic Universe seems odd. Why would Warner Bros. license out one of its main characters without getting that synergy in return?