DC Comics super-fans: Can’t wait another month for the near-51 minute “Gotham” pilot? Perhaps the below embedded featurette will provide enough of a Batman prequel fix to carry you through to the Sept. 22 premiere.
On Friday, Fox posted a 20-minute-plus behind-the-scenes “Gotham” video, featuring cast and crew interviews mixed in with episodic scenes and bonus features.
In the video, show stars and creators praise the hiring choices, the special effects and seemingly everything else that brings the adapted DC Universe to life.
For starters, show creator Bruno Heller called Ben McKenzie as the “perfect” actor to play main character Jim Gordon, touting the performer’s “natural integrity and strength, an old-fashioned set of values that really shines through his performance.”
Those behind Detective Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue), Oswald Copperpot — aka The Penguin — (Robin Taylor) and new character Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith) also have kind words and easter egg teases for fanboys and fangirls.
See video: Ben McKenzie’s ‘Last Good Man in Gotham’ Is Vastly Outnumbered by Evil
While viewers won’t see the established Batman or Catwoman in the Fox series, there is something unique and special to covering a part of the superhero and supervillain journey’s, which haven’t gained much historical exposure, those involved explained.
“I love origin stories,” Pinkett Smith, for one, offered, saying the show gives her “a playground for [her] shadow.”
Also read: ‘Gotham’ Creator on Why Batman Would Spell the End of the Show
Another unique feature of the series and its setting is that Gotham exists in its own time — the cars are old but cell phones exist. This makes the visual effects artists, engineers, set designers, etc. as integral a part of the series as the actors.
Therefore, they also get well-deserved camera time in this preview video, adding interesting nuggets about how the city comes alive for the show.
Naturally, “Gotham” shoots in New York City, and its creators, cast and crew would have it no other way. Heller summed up the city-as-a-character concept for his project, saying, “New York in the ’70s just kept getting worse and worse and crazier and crazier — that’s the Gotham that we’re looking at today.”
Watch the video: