Last fall, Fox won the bidding war for “Gotham,” an upcoming drama series that will focus on Detective Jim Gordon long before Bruce Wayne became Batman. With a series commitment already in place, “Gotham” now his its first director.
Deadline is reporting that Danny Cannon has signed on to direct the pilot of “Gotham” and executive produce the series. This isn’t Cannon’s first brush with comic book fandom, as he directed the 1995 Judge Dread movie starring Sylvester Stallone in addition to his feature film credits including I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and Phoenix.
However, Cannon is best known for directing several TV series, including the pilot episode of “CSI” and numerous episodes in that franchise over the course of many seasons. Cannon has also directed the pilot episodes for “Alcatraz,” “Dark Blue” and “Nikita.”
Jim Gordon is one of Batman’s first supporting characters and he was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane. As the Police Commissioner, Gordon has appeared in numerous Batman adaptations and he was most recently portrayed by Gary Oldman (pictured above) during Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy.
The exact details of “Gotham” haven’t been revealed yet, but early rumors suggest that the first case that Detective Gordon will deal with in the pilot is the infamous murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne that eventually caused their son Bruce to become Batman.
“The Mentalist” creator Bruno Heller is writing the pilot for “Gotham” and executive producing it alongside Cannon. With the primary creative team in place, Gordon will likely be cast within the next few weeks.
