The Hollywood Reporter (Weekly)
BATMAN VS. BATMAN VS. BATMAN
Competing visions of Gotham City proliferate as the DC Universe extends into the podcast sphere
→ As James Gunn and
Peter Safran reshape the DC Universe at Warner Bros. Discovery, film and TV aren’t the only mediums where the denizens of Gotham City will take on new lives.
Since 2021, DC has created three podcasts featuring the Caped Crusader — all played by different actors and all involving wildly different storylines. The first of the batch was HBO Max’s Batman:
The Audio Adventures, a scripted fiction podcast from SNL writer Dennis McNicholas starring Jeffrey Wright as Batman, Rosario Dawson as Catwoman and
John Leguizamo as the Riddler. An homage to the campy 1960s (and ’90s) TV series, the podcast returned for a second season in October and boasted a supporting cast of current and former SNL castmembers like Jason Sudeikis.
Last year, Spotify and DC came out with their own take on Batman for an audio series penned by The Dark Knight scribe David S. Goyer. Starring Winston Duke as Bruce Wayne and Hasan Minhaj as the Riddler, Batman Unburied took on a decidedly darker tone, in keeping with Warners’ recent Batman films.
Of the two, HBO Max’s version was the only one to earn a nomination at the Ambies (in the sound production and design category), though Spotify’s version found wide success on its platform, temporarily displacing
Joe Rogan on Spotify’s top podcast chart shortly after launch.
This month, Spotify returned with its latest DC installment, Harley Quinn & the Joker, with Christina Ricci and Billy Magnussen as the supervillains and Justin Hartley as Batman.
“The thing that always reinvigorates me and still surprises me is the many different interpretations these characters can handle,” says Peter Girardi, executive vp at Blue Ribbon Content and WB Animation, which oversees all Batman podcasts. “If we can bring people to these characters in a way that maybe they hadn’t experienced before, that’s great.”