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Pennyworth (Gotham Spin-Off)

 
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Robert (Butch) Day
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 09, 2019 5:44 pm    Post subject: Pennyworth (Gotham Spin-Off) Reply with quote

From https://www.aintitcool.com/gothams-alfred-gets-his-own-origin-story-81715/

Veronica Rampant here,

I don't really have "guilty pleasures," but if I did, GOTHAM would be one of them. The show is an over-the-top camp fest with a lot of amazing actors chewing up the scenery (BD Wong as a mad scientist! The gay bromance of Penguin and Riddler!) and it's just super-fun to watch. But one of my favorite characters has got to be the character of Alfred, the Wayne family butler.

As you might expect in a series that is all about a young Bruce Wayne, Alfred has a major role as Bruce's surrogate parent, but the GOTHAM Alfred is a version we haven't really seen before. A special ops agent from the British Secret Service, Alfred is a London scrapper with a dark past, who teaches Bruce hand-to-hand combat and simultaneously tries to keep him safe while teaching him it's okay to torture enemy combatants for information. Basically, it's pretty easy to see how you could grow up to be Batman with this guy making you pancakes every morning.

Now, creator/producer Danny Cannon has announced at a TCA event (whatever that is)* that Alfred is going to get his own series - and yes, it will be a prequel show about his time in the secret service. Apparently it's set in London in the swinging 60s...? Which means that Gotham is set in the 80s, I guess? So maybe we'll get the DARK KNIGHT RETURNS Frank Miller-esque 50 year old Batman post-quel eventually that I'm waiting for, too.

Cannon assures viewers that the show will be "R Rated" and "unhinged." I think we're talking about the Danny Boyle version of the Bat-verse. Which I am totally on board for.

The show, inexplicably, will be on EPIX, NOT the new DC channel, which I don't understand at all (maybe it's the R-rating), but I guess I'll have to get EPIX. They have a GET SHORTY series in development, as well, so that's promising.

What do you think, talkbackers? Anybody else willing to give this a shot?

-Roni over and out!

* Television Critics Association

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Eadie
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 10, 2019 8:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Batman Prequel Pennyworth Goes to an Alternate ‘60s, Takes a Cue from Christopher Nolan Films [TCA 2019]


["Uncle" Bud, could you re-title this thread to Pennyworth? Butch is in the hospital with frost-bite. A water pipe burst and he and Pye-rate had to fix it.]

https://www.slashfilm.com/batman-prequel-pennyworth-details-tca-2019/

Jack Bannon:



The creators of Gotham are going even further back into the Batman legend with their Epix series Pennyworth. We’ve already learned how the origin story of Alfred Pennyworth will show how a young Alfred (Jack Bannon) met Thomas Wayne (Ben Aldridge) in 1960s London and ends up battling the descendants of Jack the Ripper. Now we have a few more details.

Pennyworth creators Bruno Heller and Danny Cannon were on a Television Critics Association panel this weekend for Pennyworth along with cast members where they talked about taking a key cue from Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, their alternate 1960s setting, and something you might not know about Bruce Wayne’s future butler.

It was Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy that introduced the idea that Aflred was an SAS soldier in his youth. Pennyworth will show Alfred’s military service, thus explaining his fighting skills for the duration of the series.

“We owe a debt to Michael Caine for making him an SAS soldier in the first place,” Heller said. “It’s really a chance to make him the center of a story, explain that journey. How did he get from being a young SAS soldier to being a butler in America?”

After his tour of duty, Alfred gets involved with Thomas Wayne, driving for him and eventually fighting villains of the British ‘60s. That sort of backstory turns Alfred into an action hero himself. It may seem like a stretch, and in fact Alfred: The Movie was a joke in last summer’s Teen Titans GO! To the Movies. So it will be up to Heller and Cannon to sell us on it, but Heller makes a good point. Alfred is only a supporting character because all the stories have been told about Batman.

“In his own life he’s not a sidekick,” Heller said. “It’s a bit like Rosencranz & Guildenstern are Dead.”

For a bit of trivia, Commissioner Gordon actor Gary Oldman also played Rosencranz in the Hamlet spinoff.

This Ain’t Your Father’s 1960s

London in the 1960s has been well documented, both by real life historians and movies recreating the era. Real history gives Pennyworth a good starting point. Cannon explained:

“I don’t think there’s a better period in London than the early ‘60s. After the war, things change for good. You can see the change in the air, culturally, artistically. It was an inspiring time I think English people always revisit. To say that was the foundation we were starting with and maintain 13 degrees more DC, 13 degrees darker, then it really came alive for us.”

From there, Pennyworth does its own take on the ‘60s, sort of how Inglourious Basterds told Tarantino’s version of World War II, in which his heroes could change the course of history. For example, The Queen of England is a character in Pennyworth, but it’s not Queen Elizabeth II. Heller adds

“This is very much an alternative universe. It’s not England in the 1960s as we remember it.”

An alternate ‘60s adds a potentially more interesting element to Pennyworth than young Alfred himself. It doesn’t sound like Heller is going to go full Tarantino with this. He’s just allowing himself the freedom to tell their own story, even if it has to contradict history. Still, let’s look for some anachronistic historical Easter Eggs!

Alfred Rejects The Family Business

Let’s be honest. “How did Alfred become a Butler” was never one of the burning questions of the Batman universe, although if Heller didn’t do it first, it’s likely one of the DCEU movies would have. As long as we’re doing Alfred, Heller does have a backstory that can take several seasons to play out.

“He’s a young man who’s father was a butler and his father wanted him to be a butler,” Heller said. “It’s the last thing that Aflred wants to do. Essentially this is the journey of someone discovering that everyone has to serve someone somehow.”

Every career path should have an inspiring drama told about them, and frankly it’s long past time for butlers to get the attention they deserve! Seriously though, since it’s inevitable that Alfred becomes the Wayne family butler, they sort of have to treat it with a level of resistance to create drama.

“So much of the world that Gotham was is what we’ve done here,” Cannon said. “It’s as much a story about how the world is different back then and how the world will change in order to create what comes after it. Why does he go to America? Why does he end up in Gotham? Why does he serve Thomas Wayne the way he does? Why does he end up a mentor to the greatest hero of all time?”

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Eadie
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 30, 2019 9:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The good folks at DC and EPIX released a teaser for the upcoming show PENNYWORTH about the origin of everyones favorite batty butler Alfred Pennyworth. We all have heard the tale of Alfred being a former special-forces bad-ass before leaving old London town to be employed by the Wayne family in Gotham. Now we actually will get to see Alfred's beginnings in the 1960s, too cool. Without Alfred, Bruce Wayne/Batman would be up sh*t's creek without a paddle many a time. It's nice to see old Alfred is finally getting his due time in the spotlight. I loved Alfred from the show Gotham and just about every incarnation of the character so I am more than up to check this series out.

PENNYWORTH stars Hainsley Lloyd Bennett (Eastenders, Catastrophe, King of Crime, and Kingdom of Evan), Ben Aldridge (Our Girl, Fleabag, and Toast) as Thomas Wayne, Dorothy Atkinson (Mr. Turner, Topsy Turvey, and HULU's Harlots) and Jack Bannon (The Imitation Game, Fury, Kids In Love and Endeavour) as Alfred Pennyworth.

The PENNYWORTH series is written by Bruno Heller (Rome, The Mentalist, Pax, and Gotham) and directed by Danny Cannon (1995's Judge Dredd, Phoenix, CSI: Crime Scene Investigations, and Gotham). It is nice to see DC utilizing the talent that truly worked for their show Gotham the writing and directing on that show was truly impressive. I can not wait to see where Cannon and Heller take our Alfred. PENNYWORTH is set to hit television screens via EPIX sometime this summer. How many of you DC lovers and haters are looking forward to checking PENNYWORTH out?


______________ PENNYWORTH Official Trailer


__________

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Krel
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 30, 2019 11:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

No Sean Pertwee as Alfred? Not interested.

David.
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Eadie
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 30, 2019 3:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is about a much younger Alfred.
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Robert (Butch) Day
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 6:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Trailer Reveals a Young, Sexy Alfred Doing Security for Thomas Wayne

http://collider.com/pennyworth-trailer/

Epix has released the full-length trailer for Pennyworth, the 1920s-set Batman prequel that follows a young Alfred Pennyworth (Jack Bannon) as he protects the life of Bruce Wayne’s father, the billionaire Thomas Wayne (Ben Aldridge). Yes, before you ask, this Alfred does, in fact, fuck. The series comes from Bruno Heller, who also created FOX’s Dark Knight prequel but Pennyworth sequel, Gotham. Heller will serve as executive producer and writer on Pennyworth alongside Danny Cannon, also onboard as executive producer and director.

It’s certainly an interesting trailer, considering the fact that if you took out the character names and the DC Comics logo it wouldn’t seem like a comic book show at all. Aesthetically, it’s about as far as the Burton-meets-Banksy look of Gotham as possible. Pennyworth seems to be giving off vibes much more similar to straightforward spy romps like the James Bond or Kingsman films. Bannon is charming in the lead role, so I hope he’s up to the task of proving why, exactly, we need an entire origin series for Batman’s butler.

Check out the trailer and official poster below. Pennyworth premieres on Epix on July 28, 2019. The series also stars Paloma Faith, Hainsley Lloyd Bennett, Ryan Fletcher, Jason Flemyng, and Polly Walker.



Here is the official synopsis for Pennyworth:

The 10-episode, hour-long drama series from Warner Horizon Scripted Television is based on DC characters created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger. It follows Bruce Wayne’s legendary butler, Alfred Pennyworth (Jack Bannon), a former British SAS soldier in his 20s, who forms a security company and goes to work with a young billionaire Thomas Wayne (Ben Aldridge), who’s not yet Bruce’s father, in 1960s London.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxpfg0oeIX0

A bunch of pictures are at the site.
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