Poison Ivy is reportedly being developed as a live-action HBO series, with The Penguin creator and showrunner Lauren LeFranc in talks to produce. The project would give Dr. Pamela Isley her first series built entirely around her, after decades as one of Batman's most recognizable opponents.
TheWrap has learned that LeFranc is in talks to produce the series for DC Comics and HBO. The network has not greenlit the project, so it remains an in-development expansion of the character's story rather than a confirmed addition to HBO's schedule.
LeFranc would reportedly serve as a producer only and would not write the series. No writers are currently attached, and no actor has been cast as Poison Ivy.
The proposed series would also be separate from Matt Reeves' Batman universe. That makes it distinct from The Penguin, which followed Colin Farrell's Oswald Cobb after his introduction in The Batman.
No announcement has placed this version of Poison Ivy inside the wider DC Universe or established it as a standalone continuity. For now, the only firm boundary in the reporting is that it would not share the Gotham built around Robert Pattinson's Batman.
LeFranc's involvement follows the success of The Penguin, her eight-episode crime drama about Cobb's rise through Gotham's underworld. The limited series won nine Emmys, including the lead actress award for Cristin Milioti's performance as Sofia Falcone.
Her producing credits also include Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Impulse, Chuck, My Own Worst Enemy and Hemlock Grove. The Poison Ivy project would fall under her two-year overall deal with HBO.
In the comics, Pamela Isley is a botanist whose connection to plant life turns her into Poison Ivy. Depending on the version of the character, she can manipulate plants and use pheromones to influence or control the people around her.
That combination has allowed Ivy to move between outright villain and antihero. She is often driven by a desire to protect the natural world, but her methods can put her in direct conflict with Batman and everyone else standing in her way.
Uma Thurman played the character in the 1997 film Batman & Robin, still her best-known live-action movie appearance. Peyton List later played Ivy in Gotham, while Bridget Regan took on the role in Batwoman.
Lake Bell has voiced Poison Ivy in the animated series Harley Quinn, where Ivy is Harley's girlfriend and one of the show's central figures. Across those film, television and animated appearances, however, the character has never been the main focus of her own movie or series.
If HBO picks up the project, the next steps would be to attach writers and begin casting the lead role. Until then, Poison Ivy remains an early-stage possibility with an accomplished producer in talks and the central creative role still open.
