Some writers just want to watch the world burn
If you’ve ever wanted to watch a ten-part miniseries of Batman’s weird butler Alfred Pennyworth, the people behind television showGothamhave got you covered. ProducersBruno Heller and Danny Cannon have castJack Bannon (The Imitation Game) as a younger, hotter Alfred for an upcoming series on Epix calledPennyworth.
Bannon will be joined by Ben Aldridge (American Psycho: The Musical) as Thomas Wayne, him and Alfred both working together in the show’s setting of 1960s London long before billionaire and not-at-all-Batman Bruce Wayne was born. The description thatEWis given for the young Alfred is as follows:
“[A]boyishly handsome, cheerful, charming, clever young man from London. Honest, open-faced and witty; you’d never take him for an SAS killer. Alfred doesn’t know how to reconcile the kind-hearted boy he used to be with the cold, calculated killer he was forced to become. He’s a man on the make, who doesn’t know what to make of himself yet.”
Long story short, they made him hot, I guess. I question who exactly this audience is for what feels like a prequel for a prequel, and I certainly don’t know a single person who even has an Epix subscription. Of course, this is coming from a person who has never seenGothamor given it a chance, so perhaps this could work for fans of that show.
I am vaguely reminded of rumors back during the Andrew Garfield era ofSpider-Manfilms that some sort of young Aunt May spy movie was in the works, an idea that I would have loved solely from the sheer nonsensicality of it. I still want the cowards at Sony to make that film one day (especially afterVenomwas so damn successful), and I hopePennyworth, which starts production later this month, embraces some of that ridiculousness and doesn’t take itself too seriously. Let’s see somerubies the size of a tangerine.
Gothamteam’s young Alfred series has found its star[EW]
