With their noir-influenced color palette, brutal fight scenes, and gloomy aesthetic of Gotham City, Batman stories tend to be pretty visual. But the Caped Crusader's latest exploits won’t be visual at all, because they’re being chronicled in a podcast. HBO Max is set to release a podcast entitled Batman: The Audio Adventures that will offer a comedic take on the Dark Knight. Jeffrey Wright has been cast to voice Bruce Wayne in the curious new project.
Wright is no stranger to the crime-ridden streets of Gotham, as he’s been cast to play Commissioner Gordon in Matt Reeves’ The Batman. The multi-part podcast series will be written and directed by Dennis McNicholas, who has been a writer for Saturday Night Live since the mid-‘90s and served as co-head writer alongside Tina Fey between 2000 and 2004. Batman: The Audio Adventures is being spearheaded by Blue Ribbon Content, a division of Warner Bros., and it will arrive on HBO Max sometime later this year.
DC recently signed a major, years-spanning deal with Spotify to produce podcasts adapted from its iconic library of characters. Batman: The Audio Adventures is unrelated to this deal, but the project that’s the closest to getting off the ground as part of that deal is also about Batman. Created and executive produced by The Dark Knight trilogy’s co-writer David S. Goyer, Batman Unburied will be less lighthearted than the comedically driven Audio Adventures.
On top of writing, directing, and even appearing in the series, McNicholas is attached to produce it, too. Golan the Insatiable’s Angela Petrella is set to co-produce, while Jon Berg – the ex-Warner Bros. executive who left the company to produce his own projects – is on board as an executive producer. Berg has worked on Wonder Woman, Justice League, and Aquaman, so he’s pretty well-versed in telling stories about DC superheroes.
McNicholas has assembled a star-studded supporting cast to back up Wright’s Batman in the podcast. This includes a bunch of comic performers that McNicholas has worked with on SNL: Tim Meadows, Fred Armisen, Kenan Thompson, Seth Meyers, Chris Parnell, Melissa Villaseñor, Bobby Moynihan, and Jason Sudeikis. The series will also feature a handful of familiar voices that don’t hail from SNL, like Rosario Dawson, Brent Spiner, John Leguizamo, Alan Tudyk, and Brooke Shields.
Best known for his role in HBO’s Westworld, Wright will be seen in Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch and the next Bond movie No Time to Die (in which he’ll reprise his role as 007’s CIA contact Felix Leiter) as well as The Batman, which will usher in Robert Pattinson’s take on the cowled vigilante. Before signing on to star in Batman: The Audio Adventures, Wright has done plenty of voice acting, including a starring role in the upcoming Marvel anthology series What If...? and a guest spot on Rick and Morty.
The Batman is scheduled to be released in theaters on March 4, 2022.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter