If you’ve been clamoring for an Alfred Pennyworth TV series, your wish has been granted. That’s right, Pennyworth is actually a real thing that is happening in the world, although it’s on the Epix channel which I assume people have? I don’t know. Anyway, we’ve seen a slightly younger, more adventurous Alfred in Fox’s Gotham series, but that show’s creator says Danny Cannon says Pennyworth is a totally different beast. This younger, hotter Alfred Pennyworth is a total badass, and due to the magic of cable TV the limits of what he can do can be pushed.
Cannon tells Deadline while attending the TCAs…
“It’s twentysomething years before ‘Gotham,’ it’s a very different world. His is the DC version of 1960s London. 13 degrees history is different: It’s not the England we know. It looks and feels like, but if you look a little closer, [you ask], ‘Why is that like that? Why is that building there? What war is he talking about?’”
Part of that war apparently involves fighting some famous real-life villains. Or more accurately, the descendants of real-life villains, such as Jack the Ripper…
“Jack the Ripper was 1880s,” Cannon added. “But he has descendants.”
The series is being described as “unhinged” and “R-rated” by Cannon, but one that you don’t need to have watched Gotham to understand. Pennyworth will be set in the same continuity, but clearly nothing else is going to be the same.
“We had a test audience and there were only so many who knew it was a DC-related series,” said Cannon. “It was incredibly positive and that’s because the characters are being drawn out. There’s so much to draw from and so much to imagine.”
Jack Bannon will star in Pennyworth which hits Epix in June 2019.
