With season two a locked in certainty, Fox’s Jim Gordon origin story/Batman prequel, Gotham, might start taking riskier decisions heading into the back-half of its freshman season. However, some wish fulfillment has been officially squashed as of today with the show’s confirmed casting of Batman villain, The Dollmaker.
Despite hopes that Gotham’s take on the character would feature Michael Eklund, who took on the role in The CW’s Arrow – thus confirming a linked universe – the world of Gotham will in fact not be aligning with other DC TV shows. Instead, Colm Feore is reported to be taking on the character in Fox’s series.
Feore being cast in Gotham was reported by Deadline; it's but the latest comic book adaptation for the actor, as his previous work resume includes roles in Marvel Studios' first Thor movie and just last year, in Sony's Spidey reboot sequel The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
First referenced in the second episode of the series, there’s no word as to when we’ll be seeing Feore as The Dollmaker (a.k.a. Dr. Francis Dulmacher) on Gotham, but we do know it’s going to be before the end of the first season - and will mostly likely tie into the currently-unresolved mystery of Gotham’s disappearing street children.
Meanwhile, Gotham's Edward Nigma - actor Cory Michael Smith - has finally spoken in detail about his eventual transformation into the famed Riddler (via THR):
What I love about [the character’s history] is how diverse it is in terms of how the character is portrayed, in terms of his appearance, the different costumes and hair color. Sometimes it’s incredibly ostentatious, other times it’s almost professional, or regal. Sometimes, he’s a showman, sometimes he’s a nerd.
The actor went to say:
What I’m really excited about is the bottom of that curve. Going from this quite innocent, well-intentioned, joyful person to starting to find this other part of him that he didn’t know he had — accessing this place where he responds to the unfortunate things that people are doing to him, and starting to realize how cruel people are to him and how they mistreat him, and then doing that back to them. He’s a person who’s constantly abused, and to finally reach a part of himself where he just can’t take it anymore and starts doing it to other people — and it’s out of anger and exhaustion, and then realizing that when you start taking control of situations like that, you can gain power that way — it’ll be something that he can start to enjoy.
Despite its flaws (which the minds behind Gotham have been working on correcting since the pilot episode), we can’t argue with the casting. Thus far, just about every single actor featured on the series has been the perfect choice for their respective role - and even though he may be a little annoying right now, when the time finally does come for Smith to don his green uniform, we have a feeling it’s going to end up being something really memorable.
Of course, that probably won’t happen until at least half way through season two. Meanwhile, Gotham clearly has the support of its studio and network – hence the early renewal - but it still has some work to do before re-gaining the support of fans. Hopefully, the creative staff continues to make improvements as we sprint towards the finish line of the show’s first season.
Gotham airs Mondays at 8/7c on Fox.
"Batman's The Dollmaker" Artwork by Kentarcher @ DeviantArt