A live-action Poison Ivy series is in early development for HBO. Lauren LeFranc, the showrunner behind HBO’s The Penguin, is in talks to produce it. Deadline first reported the news on Oct. 21, citing sources.
It is not a green light. HBO has not ordered the show, and it has no writer or lead actress yet. LeFranc would produce it, not write it. The Hollywood Reporter confirmed the talks and said HBO declined to comment.
Two months ago, HBO had reportedly passed
The timing is what makes this news. On Aug. 12, The Ankler’s Lesley Goldberg reported that DC and HBO had passed on two pitches, Poison Ivy and Catwoman. Coverage of that report tied the Ivy pitch to director Matt Reeves’ Batman world, the one that produced The Penguin.
Deadline tells a different version. It says it has tracked the project “for many months.” In its account, Paramount’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery had put plans on pause.
That pause has a clear end date. A settlement with 12 states headed off the antitrust trial that had been set for March 2027, and the deal closed on Oct. 6, the AP reported. HBO and DC now sit inside the combined company, Skydance.
The Ivy talks surfaced about two weeks later.
Outside Matt Reeves’ Batman universe, under LeFranc’s HBO deal
Deadline, THR and TheWrap all say this Ivy would not live in Reeves’ continuity. That rules out a direct link to Robert Pattinson’s Batman. It also rules out The Batman Part II, now dated for Feb. 18, 2028.
What it is part of remains unclear. THR says LeFranc’s talks are for HBO and DC Studios, the company James Gunn and Peter Safran run. Variety also confirmed her involvement and places the show at HBO.
Deadline calls it a Warner Bros. and DC project. No report says whether it would join Gunn’s DC Universe or stand alone like Joker. Gunn’s film slate began with Superman in July 2025.
TheWrap adds that the project would fall under LeFranc’s two-year overall deal with HBO. So HBO has a clear reason to keep her busy. The network has not renewed The Penguin for a second season.
LeFranc turned a supporting villain into one of HBO’s biggest limited series. The Penguin premiered in September 2024, drew 24 Emmy nominations and won nine at the 2025 ceremony.
Cristin Milioti took lead actress in a limited series. Colin Farrell won a Golden Globe for the title role, though he lost the Emmy to Stephen Graham of Adolescence.
That record explains the trade headlines. Her show proved that HBO viewers will watch eight episodes of a Batman villain with no Batman in sight. A Poison Ivy series would make the same bet.
Before The Penguin, LeFranc wrote and produced on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and worked on Chuck and Hemlock Grove.
Ivy has never led her own screen project
Poison Ivy, the botanist Dr. Pamela Isley, first appeared in DC Comics in 1966 and became an eco-terrorist fixture of Batman’s rogues gallery. Uma Thurman played her in the 1997 film Batman & Robin, still her only big-screen live-action role.
On TV she has been a supporting player. Three actresses played her across Fox’s Gotham, and Bridget Regan took the role on The CW’s Batwoman. Lake Bell voices her in the animated Harley Quinn, where her romance with Harley became the show’s emotional center. She has never headlined a film or series.
The comics have already tested a solo version. DC’s Poison Ivy comic, written by G. Willow Wilson, launched in 2022 as a six-issue limited run before DC made it an ongoing series. Its first arc sends Ivy on a road trip across America, a structure that would suit a prestige TV season.
A busy month for Batman villains
The report landed two days before Clayface opens in US theaters on Friday, Oct. 23. James Watkins directed the body-horror film from a script by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini. It gives another second-tier Gotham villain a starring role. Critics disagree on it, though THR’s review called it “a bona fide body-horror delight.”
DC’s TV slate also includes The People v. Gorilla Grodd, a mockumentary spinoff of Gunn’s Superman that HBO Max ordered in August from the creators of American Vandal. It has no premiere date.
A signed deal and a writer come before any order
In 2024, LeFranc said Batman’s rogues gallery holds characters who are “fascinating potentially,” The Playlist noted. Until HBO or DC Studios says something on the record, Ivy remains a project in talks.
The next milestones are a signed deal for LeFranc and a writer hired to draft a pilot. A series order would come only after that, and HBO has given no timeline.
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