The CW's Batwoman pilot ‘predates the crossover’ with Flash and Supergirl

The CW's upcoming Batwoman pilot will predate comic crossover event in which viewers first encountered her, at least according to Arrowverse super-producer Greg Berlanti.

Berlanti, who’s currently showrunner for a record 15 live-action shows on the air, told Deadline at the Innovative TV Conference in Jerusalem that the Batwoman pilot “origin story that we set up predates the crossover; it’s a story prior to the crossover.”

The crossover that Berlanti was referring to was the Flash-Arrow-Supergirl “Elseworlds” storyline in which Barry, Oliver and Kara visiting a Gotham City where Bruce Wayne and Batman have been absent for three years. Filling in the void left by Batman to serve as the scourge of Gotham’s criminal population is Kate Kane (Ruby Rose), aka Batwoman. 

Filling in some of the backstory makes narrative sense, considering we met Batwoman in a back door pilot that only sketched at her wider story. There's still plenty of work left to do establishing the Arrowverse's take on Gotham, and it stands to reason jumping back to an earlier phase of Kate's superhero career is the way to do it.

Batwoman/Kate Kane is the first gay lead character of a live-action superhero series. The pilot is written by Caroline Dries and directed by Marcos Siega.

As previously reported, in addition to Rose, the pilot features Rachel Skarsten as chief baddie Alice, Dougray Scott as Batwoman’s father Jacob Kane, Meagan Tandy as private security agent Sophie Moore, Camrus Johnson as Lucius Fox’s son Luke Fox, and Nicole Kang as Batwoman/Kate Kane’s stepsister Mary Hamilton.  

And even though this show takes place in Gotham, and even though the pilot will be an origin story for the eponymous heroine, don’t expect Batman to appear anytime soon.  

Berlanti added about the pilot: “I have seen dailies, and they’re very exciting.”

(Via Deadline)