The Penguinis set to release on Max very soon, and executive producers Matt Reeves and Dylan Clark recently shared their hopes for Gotham’s future, the evolution of Oswald “Oz” Cobb, and its connections withThe Batman Part II.Set to begin streaming September 19th,The Penguinsees Colin Farrell returning to his dynamic role as Oz Cobb in the immediate aftermath ofThe Batman’sending and the death of major Gotham crime boss Carmine Falcone. The series will also starHow I Met Your Mother’s Cristin Miliotias Sofia, Falcone’s daughter who has ambitions of her own to rule Gotham.
Screen Rantrecently attended an exciting roundtable discussion with other journalists, asking both Reeves and Clark about the upcomingPenguinseries. Not only did the show’s executive producers voice their excitement for the new series and work with showrunner Lauren LeFranc, but they also spoke about its place and role in the greater Gotham narrative being told.Matt Reeves and Dylan Clark also provided some teases for the future beyondThe PenguinandThe Batman Part IIand the talks that are already happening.
Matt Reeves Confirms The Penguin Is All About Oz Cobb’s POV
New POV Stories May Be Coming Soon To The Batman Universe
Screen Rant: This version of Gotham is heavily populated by the city’s various crime families, andThe Penguinmakes that very clear. I’m curious, how much space is there for more of Batman’s rogues gallery? Do you see it as sprawling as the comics?
Matt Reeves: I mean, one of the things that we are excited to be doing, obviously,the movies are from Batman and Bruce’s point of view, and the only point of view breaks that we did in the first movie were Riddler’s, and only because it was in counterpoint to what’s going on. You were supposed to wonder, wait, is this Batman’s point of view or the Riddler’s point of view? But really, those stories are to tell the arc of Batman, Bruce’s story, and he’s the emotional center. Of course, the Rogues' gallery is going to be in those movies. That’s the point.
When you look at the comics, the Rogues Gallery are kind of created because this mass vigilante starts showing up in the city, and they often make themselves in reaction.And so the idea that we would be able to do that with other characters, and that there might be other point of view shifts, where we can see how those characters origins come into being, based on what we’ve seen in The Batmanand maybe characters we haven’t met yet, and how that that’s absolutely stuff that we’re talking about, the opportunity to do that.
We’re doing the Batman stories in the movies, the main point of view. To be able to then shift point of view and to tell these other stories with kind of like the guardrails taken off. What you’re able to do at HBO is very exciting.And so we are so grateful and very excited to have this opportunity and relationship with HBO, and we have been talking to them about doing more.
Dylan Clark Confirms The Penguin Won’t Be The Same Villain Batman Faces In Part II
The Penguin Is All About Oz Cobb’s Evolving Into The Kingpin of Gotham
How did you decide on the timeframe forThe Penguinbeing set one week after the flood and bringing it so close to after the events ofThe Batman?
Matt Reeves: The whole idea is that this story is about that moment that follows the movie. There’s an opportunity where Carmine Falcone has had a stranglehold on power for the last 20 years in this place, and now he’s dead. And so someone like Oz, who really believes that he can get more, but no one else believes that this is his moment to strike. And we sort of teased that at the end of The Batman as he’s staring out over the city. And we really wanted to pick things up in that moment.
The other parameters that we gave to Lauren were that obviouslywe know that we want Oz to be in the next movie, and we know the events of that movie, and so we just said we need him to have this rise to power to the point that we get him to, and then there needs to be these events that sort of give you the sense that he’s going to be entering the movie in this way.
The Penguin TV Show: Cast, Story Details & Everything We Know So Far
Matt Reeves continues his The Batman universe with some spinoff TV series, and the first to release is HBO Max’s The Penguin starring Colin Farrell.
Dylan Clark: The other thing to flag here is that obviously Oz is known as the kingpin inside the comic book space.From our movie, you don’t get a sense of how this character is going to become the kingpin. As Matt said, we’re focused on Batman and Bruce’s point of view and developing him as fully as possible.We don’t have a lot of real estate to spend with Oz, so this series and this long-form space allows us to really dig into those details.
And Lauren, being a fan of the comics, loved that briefing too, which is, we want to take this guy who is clearly ambitious. He sees an opportunity. Carmine is dead. What am I going to do?Well, the series is what I’m going to do, and that’s going to get us further down the road, so that when he comes back into Movie Two, he’s not the same character that Batman interacted with.
Reeves and Clark Refuse To Answer Specifics About A Possible Legal Drama Starring Two-Face
But Conversations Like That Are Happening In DC Universe Circles
Gotham is in complete chaos after the flood, and there’s no real law and order. You’d think one priority for the city would be to appoint a new DA. Could we potentially see a familiar face (or two) pop up in the future of this world, maybe in a legal drama show context setting?
Matt Reeves: Oh well, gosh. How can we possibly answer that question? Because that would give a lot away that we certainly cannot possibly, but yeah we’re not going to answer that question.
But yes,there needs to be some new people that will come to replace the old. And, so that is certainly a possibility, and, but I don’t think there’s any way we could give that answer to you.You’re thinking certainly in the way that our conversations have gone. Let’s put it that way.
Dylan Clark: We can compliment you and acknowledge your insight and awareness of these great characters that this new Batman canon has to explore. We feel the pressure of exploring that too and how and who and when and why, and how it all could all work out.
The Penguin
Cast
Created by Lauren LeFranc, The Penguin is a crime-drama spin-off television series of 2022’s film The Batman. Set shortly after the events of The Batman, Oz Cobb, A.K.A. the Penguin, begins his rise in the underworld of Gotham City as he contends with the daughter of his late boss, Carmine Falcone, for control of the crime family’s empire.
