Bruno Heller Responds to 'Gotham' Criticism With a Resounding "Duh"

If that recent kickass full trailer for the upcoming Batmanless Batman show Gotham didn’t get you onboard, this interview showrunner Bruno Heller (Rome, The Mentalist) gave to Entertainment Weekly should do the trick. First, Heller addressed the legal issues of using these characters, and whether the reason he’s leaving Batman out of it is because of copyright issues.

Certainly from Warner Bros. and DC’s business point of view, that’s why it can be done. For me, if they said, “Do Batman,” I would have said, “No.” I would have not been interested at all. I don’t think Batman works very well on TV — to have people behind masks. Frankly, all those superhero stories I’ve seen, I always love them until they get into the costume. And then it’s, “Oh, okay, they’ve ascended, they’ve stopped becoming humans.” It’s their apotheosis. They go to heaven and they’re Superman. There have been so many great versions of it. This is a version of something else entirely.

He also stated that the show will have a procedural framework, but will definitely be more serialized in nature, and that the entire first season is already mapped out (YA HEAR THAT, MERIWETHER?).

When the interviewer finally brings up the question that literally no one who has heard about this show hasn’t asked— namely, how the f*ck do you make a Batman Show without Batman?— Heller has the absolute best response possible.

Most stories that people tell don’t have Batman in them.

When you put it that way, it’s kind of hard to argue with.

Check out the entire interview if you want to fall in love with Bruno Heller. He seems like the perfect mix of brilliant and bitchy. You know, our people.

From EW via The Mary Sue.