
It turns out Greg Berlanti’s plans for Batwoman extend far beyond the annual Arrowverse crossover.
The CW is developing a script for a Batwoman series for 2019, EW has learned. While there’s no casting news as of yet, the character will make her debut in this year’s DC crossover event, as Arrow star Stephen Amell announced in May. EW has also learned that the forthcoming crossover will include Arrow, The Flash, and Supergirl — but not DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.
“Armed with a passion for social justice and a flair for speaking her mind, Kate Kane soars onto the streets of Gotham as Batwoman, an out lesbian and highly trained street fighter primed to snuff out the failing city’s criminal resurgence,” reads the official logline for the potential series. “But don’t call her a hero yet. In a city desperate for a savior, Kate must overcome her own demons before embracing the call to be Gotham’s symbol of hope.”
What makes this series so exciting is that this will be the first live-action Arrowverse show where the titular hero is a LGBT character if it gets picked up to series (the animated Freedom Fighters: The Ray is centered on openly gay superhero the Ray, voiced by Russell Tovey, who also played him in last year’s Crisis on Earth-X crossover). Furthermore, as EW mentioned when Batwoman’s crossover appearance was first announced a few months ago, the prospect of introducing a member of the Bat-family to the universe has been a long time coming. Both Gotham City and some of its more famous inhabitants have been referenced before on Arrow, The Flash, and Supergirl.
The series, which has only reached a script-development deal at this point, will be written by Caroline Dries, who is also executive producing alongside Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, and Geoff Johns (under his new Mad Ghost Production banner). This isn’t Dries’ first time on a superhero show. Before working on The Vampire Diaries, she wrote for the long-running Superman prequel series Smallville. Berlanti Productions will executive produce in association with Warner Bros. Television.
It’s worth noting that Batwoman isn’t the only Bat-related series in development for 2019. In May, Epix gave a series order to Pennyworth, a 1960s set drama about Batman’s trusty butler Alfred Pennyworth from the team behind Fox’s Gotham.
The annual DC crossover event is slated to air in December.