Should The Batman Get Its Own Cinematic Universe?

The Batman will reboot the Batman movie franchise under the vision of director Matt Reeves. While The Batman‘s storyline has remained shrouded in mystery, we recently got the news that the film already has a TV spinoff in the works, which will look at the corruption in Gotham City and its police, before the events of The Batman take place. Included in that announcement was word that Warner Bros. is “launching a new Batman universe across multiple platforms.” The writing seems to be on the wall that The Batman is going to exist in its own cinematic universe – the question is: is that what DC want to see?

In a recent episode of the ComicBook Nation podcast, hosts Kofi Outlaw and Matthew Aguilar discussed why having The Batman exist in its own cinematic universe is a good thing:

“So I mean a ‘new Batman universe’ to me says this is its own franchise and they have as we’ve talked about or debated on the show before, they’re gonna build out an entire kind of film world of Batman and related characters and Gotham and all that. To me… you could actually do a lot of things that set up a lot of other characters and explain a lot of things,” Kofi explained. “…So this series could actually help fill in a lot of great backstory about… the cops their relationship to the mob in the town, what happens when like crazy and just a story of like how they all react to when you know, weird costume freaks and new crime people start showing up. Like that can all be very interesting if it’s all part of one cohesive story. Do you know what I mean?”

Indeed, no movie franchise has yet fleshed out the Batman franchise into an entire world – but it’s certainly something that DC Comics has been doing for years now. In fact, many hope The Batman TV spinoff is an adaptation of the Gotham P.D. comic series, which looked at Gotham’s broken system of law and order. It could be just the starting point for so many characters, series, and stories from Batman’s world getting major spotlights on the big or small screens.

For host Matt Aguilar, the big appeal of having The Batman as its own cinematic universe is simple: a fresh start on every single Batman character that other movies and TV shows have used in the last decade (and may have mishandled):

“I don’t want this to be taken as is I am dissing Birds of Prey. Because I’m not that’s not what this is. However, what I will say is I’m actually looking forward… that it is a new Batman universe, which means in my eyes – and I imagine yours – means like, everybody’s on the table again because this is not the DCEU or EU or whatever… So that means we can get … a more fully fleshed out harder, darker take on characters like Huntress, like Renee Montoya, like Harvey Bullock. Those characters have been in Gotham and Birds of Prey and other shows and movies, but … I would love to see those characters kind of get their due, especially in a long-form series with the wherewithal to be in R-rated territory. To be able to really take those characters and instead of Gotham – where again, it was more of a comic book show because he had to split all the attention to not just the cops, but all the villains and then Bruce Wayne and alpha and all that other stuff. I’m really excited because I really do want that Gotham Central take. So I am kind of looking forward to – again no dispersions on Birds of Prey and what they did ’cause I liked parts of what they did. But I’m actually looking forward to a redo. I’m excited about that.”

Do you want to see The Batman kick off its own cinematic universe, or would you like to see it connected to the larger DC film franchise? Let us know in the comments!

Listen to the full discussion below, or watch it in the video above. New episodes of ComicBook Nation air Wednesdays and Fridays on your favorite podcast platforms.