Okay, this series just became a lot more interesting.
Over two months ago, a new Fox TV series called Gotham was announced that will center around the DC Comics character of Commissioner James Gordon in the days before he first encounters Batman. But now, Television Show Auditions has posted a casting call for the series that reveals one of the series' regular roles will be a 10-year-old Bruce Wayne. Here's the description posted on the site:
A 10-year-old Bruce Wayne is among the roles that are now being cast as series regulars on the upcoming Fox TV series "Gotham" which explores the origin stories of Commissioner James Gordon and the villains that made Gotham City famous. Under development for over a year, the project has now been given a direct-to-series order by the network, which won an intense bidding war for the Warner Bros. Television rights to the show. Shooting on the pilot episode will get underway in March, 2014 and will center on Gotham City PD rookie homicide detective James Gordon who investigates the double murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne.
BAFTA TV Award nominee Bruno Heller will serve as executive producer, head writer, and showrunner on "Gotham". Heller is an English screenwriter who came into prominence when he co-created the HBO series "Rome" in 2005. After executive producing the short lived NBC series "Bionic Woman" in 2007, he then created the popular CBS series "The Mentalist" which is now in its sixth and final season. Heller is writing "Gotham" based on characters written by the late DC Comics comic strip and comic book writers Bill Finger and Bob Kane. Although the "Gotham" central figure of James Gordon first appears in Detective Comics #27 when Bruce Wayne is Batman, Heller begins the series re-creating the characters pre-#27. No "Gotham" roles have been cast as of December 6, 2013.
The production companies behind "Gotham" are Primrose Hill Productions and Bonanza Productions. Bruno Heller is founder of Primrose Hill. Bonanza Productions is a Warner Brothers Subsidiary. Primetime Emmy Award nominee Geoff Johns will oversee production for DC Entertainment. "Gotham" will premiere on Fox Network in 2014.
And of course, if young Bruce Wayne is a regular, it stands to reason that his faithful legal guardian Alfred Pennyworth will also be a regular on the series.
The decision to feature Bruce Wayne on Gotham is a surprise, considering Warner Bros.' past protectiveness of the character and not wanting TV versions conflicting with the various Batman films. A series called Bruce Wayne was in development in 1999, but was shelved and redeveloped as the Superman-based series Smallville instead. After Smallville became a success for the WB network, the producers then attempted to do Bruce Wayne as a companion series, but were denied and the Batman-related series Birds of Prey was produced as a replacement. Smallville also attempted to feature Bruce Wayne on the series, but were forbidden and a replacement character called Adam Knight (played by Ian Somerhalder) was featured for seven episodes in season 3.