Buried in the same Ankler report that killed Waller and Paradise Lost is another reveal: DC and HBO heard pitches for Catwoman and Poison Ivy series and passed on both.
The report also describes The Penguin Season 2 as sitting in limbo.
Put the three together and the pattern is hard to miss. The projects getting iced all belong to the same corner of DC: Matt Reeves’ Gotham.
These Were ReevesVerse Layups
Think about what a Catwoman or Poison Ivy series would actually be.
The Penguin already proved the model. A Gotham underworld series pulled 24 Emmy nominations and nine wins, including Cristin Milioti’s.
Zoë Kravitz’s Selina Kyle rode out of The Batman toward Bludhaven with the door wide open for more. A Catwoman series is the most obvious spinoff in the building.
As for Ivy, Jeff Sneider reported back in June that a live-action Poison Ivy series might be in the works, with the open question being which universe claims her: Gunn’s DCU or Reeves’ Batman Epic Crime Saga.
Two months later, the answer is apparently neither.
Ivy Goes To The Movies Instead
Poison Ivy may still be coming, just not to TV.
It’s now rumored that Scarlett Johansson is playing Poison Ivy in The Batman: Part II, reimagined as a grounded serial killer obsessed with plants and toxins.
If that holds, the Ivy series pitch died at HBO while the character walks into one of the biggest movies on the Warner Bros. slate.
Sound familiar? It’s the Wonder Woman play all over again: Paradise Lost is dead while we’re told Adria Arjona’s Wonder Woman is more of a cameo in Man of Tomorrow.
As I’ve laid out, one-off appearances are the contracts Paramount never sees. A series is a multi-year commitment. Guess which one survives the merger.
The Penguin Limbo Fits The Rift
Then there’s The Penguin, which had every reason to continue.
HBO boss Casey Bloys was openly discussing Season 2 with DC as recently as November, and a Bloomberg report indicated it was in the works.
Then Sneider reported HBO and DC would not move forward, and now the Ankler softens the language to limbo.
Recall the recent claim that said Season 2 should have been shooting by now. David Ellison saw the numbers and was on board, but then DCU executives put it on ice, which blew up into major issues between Gunn and Reeves.
It also lines up with everything my sources describe about the Gunn and Reeves rift, the same rift that has The Batman Part II parked at February 18, 2028, well past the release of Gunn and Safran’s Man of Tomorrow. Our guide to Reeves’ sequel has the cast, the villain rumors, and every set reveal to date.
