The Arkham Asylum series at HBO — the project we are told that James Gunn killed — is back in play.
I’m told Matt Reeves remains very much interested, and with Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy open for business, the series set inside Gotham’s madhouse is alive again.
This follows today’s bombshell report that the Paramount board wants Gunn and Peter Safran out at DC Studios once the merger closes, with De Luca and Abdy set to take the whole thing under their umbrella and already fielding pitches from Zack Snyder, Ben Affleck, Christopher McQuarrie, Patty Jenkins, and Reeves himself.
More Lives Than a Lazarus Pit
A quick history, because this project has died more than once.
Reeves’ Gotham PD series was announced back in 2020 alongside The Batman, set inside his Batman universe as the first spinoff of what became the Batman Epic Crime Saga.
By 2022, Reeves revealed the show had evolved into an Arkham series, leaning into horror, with the asylum itself as a haunted house.
Then Gunn and Safran took over DC Studios, and at their January 2023 slate reveal, the Arkham series was pulled out of Reeves’ universe and folded into the DCU instead (sound familiar Clayface fans)?.
And then? Nothing. The project vanished and was announced as canceled in January 2024.
The Penguin Proved the Model
Meanwhile, the one Reeves spinoff that did make it to air proved exactly what this corner of Gotham is worth: The Penguin scored 24 Emmy nominations and nine wins, including Cristin Milioti for Lead Actress, and was a monster hit for HBO.
So naturally, The Penguin Season 2 went from HBO chief Casey Bloys publicly talking with DC about what it could look like… to dead — reported last month as not moving forward.
Gunn’s Peacemaker? Zero Emmy nominations for any of the cast, directors, or writers. And following a loss of nearly half its audience, Bloys said he decides what DC projects go on HBO.
More on what I’m hearing happened there — and the real story behind The Batman Part II‘s “delays” — in my next report.
Why Now
Here’s where it gets interesting: in the post-merger structure my sources have described, Bloys oversees streaming, De Luca and Abdy oversee theatrical, and Gunn’s DC Studios shuts down as a standalone entity.
Reeves waited Gunn out on The Batman Part II with De Luca’s full blessing. And filmmakers who want nothing to do with the current regime suddenly have a very good reason to pick up the phone.
An Arkham horror series on HBO — filmmaker-driven, prestige, from the man behind The Penguin — is exactly the kind of no-goofy-stuff project the incoming regime is asking for.
Gunn killed it. The people replacing him are bringing it back.
That tells you everything about where the power is flowing at Warner Bros. right now. Stay tuned.
