This Pennyworth Teaser Reminds Us That Batman’s Butler Is British

This Pennyworth Teaser Reminds Us That Batman’s Butler Is British

Video: There’s a good chance, up until this point, you could have thought the news that Batman’s butler was getting his very own origin-story spy show was some elaborate joke. However, if that’s the case, the joke’s now on you, because Epix just released a teaser for that exact show: Pennyworth.

It isn’t a teaser trailer, though. More like a teaser for a trailer because it’s less than 20 seconds long, but in that time you get a sense of what this show is — and are reminded time and time again of Alfred’s nationality (British, just in case you somehow miss it). We can finally say for a fact, yes, this show actually exists.

Jack Bannon plays the title character in Pennyworth, “a former British SAS soldier in his 20s, who forms a security company and goes to work with a young billionaire Thomas Wayne (Ben Aldridge), who’s not yet Bruce’s father, in 1960s London,” according to the press release.

“An essential mystery there is ‘How did a gung-ho SAS soldier wind up a butler?’ That is not the natural progression,” executive producer Bruno Heller, told TV Insider.

“As far I know, Michael Caine, when he was asked the play the part [in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy] said ‘I don’t want to play [a straight-out] butler.’”

That, in turn, informed Heller’s vision of Alfred on Gotham, which he also created. It hasn’t been stated that Pennyworth is a direct prequel to Gotham (which is ending this year), but it very well could be.

“We learn about everything he’s gone through,” Bannon told TV Insider. “The war was a big part of his formative years because he was in the army for 10 years. When we meet him, he’s out of it, but through a series of flashbacks, we learn some of the horrors he went through and how they shaped the man he is today.”

I mean, that kind of sounds good, right? Who knows. We’ll find out when the 10-episode Pennyworth premieres this winter.


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.