The CW’s Gotham Knights was unfortunately a victim of bad timing: It came out at a time when Nexstar had purchased a majority stake in The CW, therefore cancelling a lot of shows prematurely; it was not part of the profitable deal that took CW shows to Netflix; and finally, a majority of the show’s run came at a time when the show’s creative team was on strike, therefore meaning the audience didn’t get to see as much press and promotion as they would have otherwise. It also came at a time when, unfortunately, the days of DC Comics-related TV on The CW were almost coming to an end, with only Superman & Lois making it to 2024.
Sadly, there was another incidence of bad timing that got in Gotham Knights’ way, that was only now revealed on the Showrunner Whisperer podcast hosted by Multiverse of Color: In speaking with showrunners James Stotereaux and Chad Fiveash, it was revealed that the show had gotten permission for one episode to show us Batman — and the actor they had in mind for the role was Kevin Conroy, the famed actor who had been the definitive voice of Batman for three decades before his passing in November 2022. (He will be heard posthumously in the upcoming Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 3 animated movie.)
Sadly, Conroy was too sick to be able to play the role on Gotham Knights, and he would pass away in November 2022 after a short battle with cancer.
“He was always my favorite Batman, and we were dealing with an older Batman. You can still see in some of the DNA of things, like for the pilot, we used a photo double, and it’s not quite an accident that the photo double looks a lot like Kevin. That was very much intentional,” James Stotereaux explained on the podcast.
“We didn’t want to just do this with a random person,” he added. “We felt like it was important to have]somebody of Kevin’s stature and somebody that had this gravitas, and obviously, he was the right age for that. That was initially the plan. It was obviously very sad that he died, but we didn’t want to do it just by slotting somebody in there.” Stotereaux confirmed that Misha Collins (who played Harvey Dent) was trying to get his Supernatural co-star Jensen Ackles in as Batman – “which would have been awesome,” he said – but ultimately, “we didn’t want to do it just to do it.”
The scene in question that the producers had hoped to do was in the Robin/Carrie Kelley casting sides. “Carrie talks about it in the show, or at least alludes to it,” Chad Fiveash explained. “We were very clear that this was not going to become the Carrie/Batman show. It was like, ‘this is part of our history, but it’s gonna stay there in our history’.”
Since this did not happen, The CW’s Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover was the only time audiences got to see their “favorite Batman” in live action – and there, he was playing a much different version of Bruce Wayne. It is fun, however, to imagine how cool this would have been to see.
You can listen to the Showrunner Whisperer here.
