Colin Farrell Hopes Penguin Series Starts Filming in 2023, and He Still Wants to Star in ‘The Batman 2’
Colin Farrell recently told Entertainment Tonight that he hopes to start filming his Penguin series for HBO Max in 2023. Variety confirmed in March that HBO Max had given a straight-to-series order for the show, which will be a spinoff of Matt Reeves’ “The Batman” movie. Farrell made his debut as Oswald Copperpot/ Penguin in the film. The actor told ET that he’s hopeful his Penguin future extends beyond just the spinoff series and includes “The Batman” sequel movie.
“Oh my god, you kidding me?!” Farrell said rhetorically when asked if he’d play Penguin on the big screen again in “The Batman” sequel. “It’s so much fun, are you joking [with] me? I’ve been around the block man. That was an easy sport, I mean… it was a joy.”
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Farrell continued about the sequel, “Matt’s up to his bollocks, you know, hovering over the keyboard and just planning the story because he’s just so meticulous. He’s so obsessive about what he does, but he’s all over [HBO Max’s] Penguin [series] as well. I mean, he’s not gonna direct it but he’s all over the structure of the scripts and who’s gonna direct them. And so, it’s exciting.”
The actor’s new Apple TV+ science-fiction series “Sugar” kicks off production this month and will extend into the fall, hence the delay on filming the Penguin series. Farrell can currently be seen in Ron Howard’s rescue drama “Thirteen Lives,” now in theaters and streaming Aug. 5 on Prime Video.
“The Batman” opened to rave reviews in March, with Farrell’s prosthetics-laden supporting turn as Penguin drawing acclaim. The Warner Bros. release grossed $369 million in the U.S. and tapped out at $770 million worldwide. The studio confirmed in April that Reeves and star Robert Pattinson would return for a second film.
In Variety’s review of “The Batman,” chief film critic Peter Debruge singled out Reeves for doing “something relatively unique here, at least by comic-book-movie standards,” adding, “This grounded, frequently brutal and nearly three-hour film noir registers among the best of the genre, even if — or more aptly, because — what makes the film so great is its willingness to dismantle and interrogate the very concept of superheroes.”
As for Farrell’s Penguin series, the actor had this to say earlier this year when the show was officially announced: “The world that Matt Reeves created for ‘The Batman’ is one that warrants a deeper gaze through the eyes of Oswald Cobblepot. I couldn’t be more excited about continuing this exploration of Oz as he rises through the darkened ranks to become The Penguin. Will be good to get him back on the streets of Gotham for a little madness and a little mayhem.”
“The Batman” is now streaming on HBO Max.
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