John T. Gotham was the founder of Gotham City in the Burtonverse.
History[]
Early life[]
Gotham founded the city 200 years ago.
Legacy[]
A statue of John T. Gotham was erected in the center of Gotham Square, in front of City Hall and the Flugelheim Museum.
Behind the Scenes[]
Warren Skaaren created the John T. Gotham statue in Gotham Square concept. This is one of many changes to reduce the scale in Sam Hamm's script for budgetary concerns coming from Peter Guber. Hamm had conceived of the Joker defacing the Statue of Liberty, interrupting Governor Gilroy's ceremony. Instead of taking place on an island on Gotham Harbor, Skaaren created the much smaller statue in front of City Hall, with a the statue unveiling being presented by Mayor Borg. When the statue is revealed, instead of John T. Gotham, a large replica of Joker stands atop the pedestal. A large statue of Nicholson was made, but the scene dropped in re-writes and never shot. The statue was later painted and currently is on display at Planet Hollywood in New York. Smaller versions of the statue were distributed as crew gifts.
Trivia[]
- In 1986 Alan Moore previously identified Captain Jon Logerquist as the founder of Gotham in Swamp Thing #52. Due to this being an obscure reference in a Swamp Thing comic as the time, Skaaren was likely unaware of it, as he only cited having Shadow of the Batman and The Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes as source material references to work from when he flew to Pinewood in the fall of 1988.[1] By contrast Hamm had been given much more time and material to work from by Jenette Kahn, including full transcripts of Alan Moore's Gotham City lore and Killing Joke (long before they ever drawn or published) yet his 1986 script makes no reference to Gotham's founders at all.
Links[]
References[]
- ↑ Rewrite Man: The Life and Career of Screenwriter Warren Skaaren