NYCC 2018: ‘Gotham’ Confirms Shane West Will Play Bane in Season 5

Gotham showrunner John Stephens confirmed on Sunday that Bane will appear in season 5, played by Shane West, and gave some clues about what the massive villain will be up to.

Stephens appeared on a special Gotham Panel at New York Comic Con, along with some of the cast members. They showed a new trailer for the series’ final season, and let a few more details slip as well. Stephens verified that Shane West has joined the cast to play Bane — as he told ComicBook.com during our set visit earlier this week. If that weren’t enough, Stephens and Sean Pertwee, who plays Alfred Pennyworth, teased some of the Bane’s forthcoming antics.

“He has a nice showdown with Alfred,” Stephens said, looking to Pertwee.

“We have an altercation, and Cat’s involved, and we give very good account of ourselves,” Pertwee said, “but I get my back broken.”

The fight will apparently be a take on the classic Batman comic storyline Knightfall, in which the Dark Knight had his spine shattered by Bane. A version of the story made it into The Dark Knight Rises in 2012, and even included the same vicious knee-drop as the comics did. However, Pertwee and Stephens feel it will take on a whole new meaning when Alfred is the one who gets hurt.

Stephens told the crowd that he and the rest of the producers have been dying to include Bane in the show for years, but they have been repeatedly denied by the rights-holders.

“Finally, we found that if you beg and you plead enough, and then they find out that your show is not going on anymore, they’ll give it to you,” he said to raucous laughter.

“We always wanted to do it,” he went on, “and we wanted to do it in a way that has not been told as much on screen or in the comic books, which was to really tell the story of how he was before he became Bane. And we tied it to Jim’s back story, in a way that I think is clearly different than canon, but I feel like it is like a tributary that then goes into the canon.”

Stephens also said that west was perfect casting, praising the actor’s take on a character that has hecome extremely well known recently.

“When Shane comes in to play he him, he plays him with a level of — this is weird to say, but — authenticity,” he said. “You believe that character and you believe that guy.”

Gotham returns for its final half-season in 2019.