Pennyworth had a panel at this year’s NYCC! The panel started off with a screening of the first episode of season 3. England’s civil war with the Raven Society is over and you know what that means! Time jump! We know find ourselves in the 70s and the world is becoming more accustomed to super powered humans.
The panel was attended by Jack Bannon (Alfred Pennyworth), Ben Aldridge (Thomas Wayne) and showrunners Bruno Heller and John Stephens. When talking about bringing in more superpowers Heller had this to say:
“It’s just before the dawn of that moment; this is kind of the beta testing of that world. It’s science gone a bit mad, freedom and liberty gone a bit mad, and how do these characters handle that in the moment? How is it gonna grow towards the world in which a Batman could exist? We’re not quite there yet, but the preconditions are there.”
Stephens also talked about bringing in more of the Bat mythos:
“Because we all know where the show is going to be going, we don’t need to take a direct line there whatsoever We can proceed there by these strange byways and so, the world that we start in can be a very grounded, realistic world, and we can just drop these odd Easter eggs here and there. We know sooner or later, we’re gonna arrive at a place with someone who is dressing up as a bat and jumping around buildings.”
One particular curve ball thrown by the second season was addressed but not really answered. Thomas and Martha Wayne have a baby girl.
Ben Aldridge:
“We were like, ‘It’s a girl! Is Bruno flipping the gender of Batman? Is this gonna be Batgirl? And he still hasn’t told us, so we don’t know. As far as I can tell, Samantha is a separate entity to Bruce and that Bruce is potentially on the way at some point. But yeah, we were probably just as shocked as [the audience was] …What happens to Sam? Because she’s not in the future of it.”
Another elephant in the room was also addressed. That pesky subtitle that was added: The Origin Of batman’s Butler.
Bruno Heller:
“It came from them HBO Max doing their proper research. What they discovered was, there was lots of people who had watched two seasons of the show and had no idea that it was connected to the Batman universe. When you’re in the DC universe, it feels like its own brand, but if you’re not steeped in that, then you’re not. So, there was a lot of back and forth about exactly what that subtitle would be.”
Pennyworth: The Origin Of Batman’s Butler is now streaming on HBO Max, Including episodes of the new season!
