HBO Max’s The Penguin takes place a week after The Batman, with Gotham still underwater
The Penguin will at least partially cover the aftermath of The Batman's somewhat strange flood
Aux News HBO
Colin Farrell’s outrageous performance as Oswald “The Penguin” Cobblepot in Matt Reeves’ The Batman was far and away one of the best parts of the film, embodying the exact wackadoo vibe that inspires Gotham City’s denizens to become murderous clowns, or puzzling terrorists, or bat-themed vigilantes. So it’s very exciting—and makes perfect sense—that he’s getting his very own spin-off series set in the The Batman universe. And now we also know a bit more about what to expect from The Penguin, with Farrell sharing some details with Extra (via Variety).
Farrell says the series begins “about a week” after the end of The Batman, with Gotham City still “somewhat underwater.” The first episode apparently begins with the Penguin walking into the office that once belonged to John Turturro’s Carmine Falcone, with his “feet splashing through the water.” For those who weren’t paying extremely close attention to the background details in The Batman that set it up, it may have been a totally inexplicably surprise when Riddler’s social media followers blew up the sea wall and flooded the city, turning the gritty, relatively reality-based comic book movie into full-on superhero spectacle. The Penguin is, evidently, not going to shy away from that big sequence, and maybe the flood will make a little more sense when we can see the Penguin splashing around in the aftermath and talking about the fucking Atlantic Ocean.
Showrunner Lauren LeFranc is writing the series, which Farrell says is “lovely” and “so well-written.” He says he “was greedy” with The Batman and just wanted to “do it more and more and more,” so he sounds pretty excited about getting this chance to do more goofy/serious Penguin stuff. The show doesn’t have a premiere date yet, but as with all HBO Max shows, sooner would probably be better than later. You never know when somebody’s going to reveal that the streaming service is surrounded by flimsy sea walls that could eventually break down, wiping the whole thing out.
14 Comments
Too Many Bats
I would love to see Colin Farrell’s at the least get an Oscar nomination. He was completely unrecognizable not just in looks but his acting. Just an incredible performance.
There are a lot of elements that movie could be nominated for. It will be a bummer when it doesn’t.
he’s gonna probably get nominated for banshees of insiherin, at least.
I think that is a really smart decision and also allows to really tell that story of the city underworld changing into something quite else. Really looking forward to the show.Man, I am still annoyed that they wanted to make the GCPD show a prequel as that was just stupid.
Underwater? Is Namor in this too?
No, but Jason Mamoa has a chance to show up now.
Good I was hoping it wouldn’t be a prequel. They are dull as fuck at this point.
The only good prequel is Temple of Doom
I remember a lot of reviews and discussion at the time referenced Farrell’s role as a “glorified cameo”, so I was surprised when I watched the movie finally and he was in so much of it. I stopped counting his scenes after the 7th or 8th appearance.He was great in the role. The transformation was really on the same level as Ledger/Joker, in terms of being totally unrecognizable visually and in terms of his performance. Kudos to the effects team and to Farrell.
After not really taking to Farrell back in the early aughts, he has slowly become one of my favorite working actors. I loved his turns in In Bruges, Horrible Bosses, True Detective S2 (despite all other flaws), The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and Seven Psychopaths.
Colin was fine, but saying he was “far and away one of the best parts of the film” feels a little generous.
Part of me asks “is this necessary?” But the other part of me remembers asking the same about Peacemaker.