According to Variety, the Arkham Asylum TV series is no longer in production at Max. The series was originally supposed to be set in the world created by Matt Reeves (10 Cloverfield Lane, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) for The Batman.
Around late 2022, Variety learned exclusively that Antonio Campos (The Staircase, The Sinner) had been hired as the new writer and showrunner/executive producer for Max’s The Batman spinoff series about Arkham Asylum. However, Variety learned from an exclusive source that Campos’ version will not move forward. But the source shares that it’s still possible a future project centered on the infamous Gotham City asylum could be created.
The show’s development for the screen has a messy and convoluted timeline. As reported by mxdwn.com, drama set in the Gotham police department by Reeves and Terence Winter (The Sopranos, The Wolf of Wall Street) received a series commitment from Max around the summer of 2020. Initially attached as writer and executive producer, Winter exited the project in November 2020 over creative differences. According to mxdwn.com, Warner Bros. then hired Joe Barton (The Lazarus Project, The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself) to write for the series around January 2021, but they ultimately parted ways with him too.
In a 2022 interview with the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Reeves mentioned that the Gotham PD series was not moving forward. However, the concept had “evolved” into the Arkham Asylum show, which he compared to a “horror movie or a haunted house that is Arkham,” Variety reports. Campos was brought on to the project before it was soon announced that James Gunn (Peacemaker, Guardians of the Galaxy) and Peter Safran (Creature Commandos, Aquaman) would take over DC Studios and create rebooted film and television universe. According to Variety, Gunn confirmed on Threads around late 2023 that the show was still being developed, specifying that it was intended to exist within the new DC Universe rather than alongside The Batman.
After years of development, DC’s long-awaited Arkham Asylum spinoff series has been put on hold. However, fans can still expect The Batman content from a different spinoff series, The Penguin, which is set to debut later this year.