Gotham’s gardening scene could be about to get considerably more dangerous. A television series centred on Batman villain ‘Poison Ivy’ is in the early stages of development, with Lauren LeFranc, the showrunner behind ‘The Penguin’, reportedly in talks to join the project as a producer.
Warner Bros. and DC have been exploring a series about Poison Ivy for some time, although plans were put on hold amid the Paramount and Warner Bros. merger. The project now appears to be moving forward again, with HBO the potential home if it gets picked up. However, this is very much a potential series rather than a confirmed commission. There are currently no writers attached, no lead actress has been cast, and no production or premiere dates have been announced.
There is also an important distinction regarding LeFranc’s involvement. Although she created, wrote and ran ‘The Penguin’, the current discussions would see her producing the Poison Ivy series, not writing it. That means we shouldn’t assume she’ll be running the new show, or that it will necessarily have the same gritty tone as her previous trip to Gotham.
A Different Corner Of The DC Universe
Despite the connection to LeFranc, the proposed ‘Poison Ivy’ series reportedly won’t be set in Matt Reeves’ Batman universe, which is home to Robert Pattinson (Tenet) as Batman and Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin) as Oz Cobb in ‘The Penguin’.
That is a fairly significant detail. LeFranc’s acclaimed crime drama followed Oz’s rise through Gotham’s underworld after the events of the 2022 film The Batman, showing just how effective a story about one of Batman’s enemies could be without having the Dark Knight constantly popping up to spoil everyone’s criminal enterprises.
For the moment, it isn’t clear whether the new series would be part of the wider DC Universe overseen by James Gunn and Peter Safran or operate in its own separate continuity. Given how many Batmen and Gotham-adjacent projects DC has juggled over the years, it is probably best not to start drawing a giant continuity chart just yet.
Who Is Poison Ivy?
Introduced in DC Comics in 1966 by Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino, Poison Ivy is the alter ego of Dr. Pamela Isley, a botanist whose connection to the natural world has taken a rather extreme turn. She can manipulate plant life, use pheromones to influence people and generally make Gotham’s parks a considerably more threatening place to visit.
Although traditionally one of Batman’s most recognisable villains, Ivy has also developed into a more complicated antihero in various comic stories. Her environmental crusades can have understandable motivations, even if her methods tend to involve poisoning people, unleashing murderous vegetation and taking a somewhat aggressive approach to urban landscaping.
That gives a potential television adaptation plenty to work with. A character-driven thriller about environmental activism taken to terrifying extremes could be fascinating, as could a story exploring Ivy’s relationship with Gotham and its inhabitants. Of course, those are possibilities rather than announced plot details. At this stage, we don’t know what direction the writers, once hired, will actually take.
Poison Ivy has appeared on screen a number of times, although she has never previously headlined her own live-action series. Uma Thurman (Kill Bill) memorably played her in the gloriously over-the-top 1997 film Batman & Robin. On television, Peyton List (The Flash) portrayed the character in ‘Gotham’, while Bridget Regan (John Wick) played her in ‘Batwoman’.
More recently, Lake Bell (In a World…) has voiced Ivy in the adult animated series ‘Harley Quinn’, which has explored her romantic relationship with Harley herself. Whether that relationship, or indeed Harley Quinn, features in the proposed live-action show remains entirely unknown.
For now, there is no release window for ‘Poison Ivy’. If the series does get commissioned, we’d expect it to land on HBO Max in the UK, or whatever the combined Paramount/Warner Bros. streaming platform ends up being called by then. With the show yet to receive an order, this particular plant still has a bit of growing to do.
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