Colin Farrell Is Unrecognizable in 'The Penguin' TV Series
If your favorite iteration of Batman is the one starring Robert Pattinson as a brooding, Nirvana-obsessed emo kid, then congratulations—your chosen universe is expanding. In 2024, Max will release The Penguin, a new limited series about Oswald “The Penguin” Cobblepot, or as his portrayer, Colin Farrell, calls him, Oz.
”Colin exploded off the screen as the Penguin in The Batman, and having the chance to thoroughly explore the inner life of that character on Max is an absolute thrill,” The Batman director Matt Reeves said in a March 2022 press release announcing the show. “Dylan [Clark] and I are so excited to work with Lauren [LeFranc] in continuing Oz’s story as he grabs violently for power in Gotham.”
Reeves will serve as an executive producer on the project, while Clark and LeFranc will contribute as writers and showrunners. Farrell, unrecognizable under layers of prosthetics, will return as Oz, who is in a prime position to become Gotham’s No. 1 crime guy after the events of The Batman.
“He is such a genius. He’s such a wonderful, soulful, lovely person and I loved working with him,” Reeves told Fandom of Farrell in January 2023. “And I remember it was this thing where when we were doing the movie, he was only in a certain part of that movie, but he just was so amazing. At the beginning, he was like, ‘I don’t want that many scenes.’ And then as we were doing it, he was having such fun, he goes, ‘Can there be more scenes?’ And I was like, ‘Well, let me see what else,’ but we only had so much space within the movie.”
And thus The Penguin was born. Keep reading for everything to know about the upcoming series.
Related: How to Watch All the Batman Movies in Order, From 1996 to Now
What is The Penguin about?
Executive producer Matt Reeves has said The Penguin will explore Oz’s crime-filled rise to power after the death of his boss in The Batman. “The idea of getting to do the series and really sort of dive into the depths of who this character is and look at that moment where it's kind of his Scarface moment,” Reeves explained to Fandom in January 2023. “The moment where everyone [has] underestimated him, he's gonna reach for power in Gotham.”
What is the release date for The Penguin?
The Penguin doesn’t yet have an official release date, but it's expected to premiere in 2024. Production on the series shut down in mid-June due to the WGA writers' strike and will not pick back up until that—and the subsequent SAG-AFTRA strike—are over.
Who is in The Penguin cast?
Colin Farrell
Fresh off his first Oscar nomination for The Banshees of Inisherin, Colin Farrell will be back as the titular Penguin after playing the iconic villain in 2022’s The Batman. “[It’s set] around Oz’s rise to power, filling that power vacuum created when Falcone was killed,” Farrell told Variety of the show’s premise. “And if it works, if the trajectory is interesting, and the audience goes for it, and we do our jobs right, the second [Batman] feature will pick up where the [Max] show will end.”
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Cristin Milioti
Cristin Milioti will star as Sofia Falcone, the daughter of late crime lord Carmine Falcone (John Turturro). Sofia is one of the main antagonists challenging Oz in the aftermath of her father’s death. Before joining the Batman world, Milioti starred in How I Met Your Mother, Made for Love, Palm Springs and The Resort.
Clancy Brown
Clancy Brown will play Salvatore Maroni, the mob boss whose drug operation was busted after Carmine informed on him to the Gotham City Police Department. A veteran character actor, Brown has appeared in Lost, Promising Young Woman, Dexter: New Blood, Billions and many more. He is also the voice of Mr. Krabs on SpongeBob SquarePants.
Michael Zegen
Michael Zegen will appear as Alberto Falcone, the son of Carmine and sister of Sofia. Most recently, Zegen played Joel Maisel on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. His other TV credits include Girls, The Walking Dead and Boardwalk Empire.
Related: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Star Michael Zegen Dangles Hope for a Movie
The Penguin also stars Michael Kelly, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Deirdre O'Connell, James Madio, Scott Cohen, Theo Rossi, Carmen Ejogo, François Chau and Rhenzy Feliz.
Is there a Penguin trailer?
Max released an “in production” teaser for The Penguin in April 2023 that describes the show as “the next chapter in The Batman Saga.” The video doesn’t offer too many hints about what exactly will happen, but Oz doesn’t seem to have softened at all since the events of The Batman. “If you step out of line even once, I’ll gut you like a goddamn fish,” he tells a lackey. Later, he shoots someone and then bursts into laughter. Somebody get Bruce Wayne on the horn!
Is Robert Pattinson in The Penguin TV series?
No one knows if Pattinson will pop up as Batman in The Penguin, but a cameo would be catnip to fans. It does seem likely he could show up near the end of the series, because somebody’s gotta do something about this dude gleefully killing people all over Gotham. The Penguin is also supposed to lead directly into the events of the next Batman movie, so a Pattinson appearance would really tie it all together.
How many episodes are in The Penguin?
According to Farrell, The Penguin will consist of eight episodes.
How does The Penguin connect to The Batman?
Farrell has said The Penguin series will begin about a week after the events of The Batman. As a refresher, that movie ended with Gotham’s biggest crime boss, Carmine Falcone, getting killed by The Riddler (Paul Dano). The Penguin worked as a lieutenant for Falcone, but without a boss to order him around, he will almost certainly try to claim the role of underworld kingpin for himself.
How to watch The Penguin
The Penguin will be available to stream on Max at some point in 2024.
Will The Penguin stream on Netflix?
In the past, this would have seemed like an impossibility, but the changing streaming landscape has recently seen HBO license some of its titles to Netflix. The only caveat is that they’ve so far only done this with older shows that have already aired their series finales: Insecure, Band of Brothers, Ballers and more. So while The Penguin may come to Netflix eventually, it’s not likely to debut there until all eight episodes have lived on Max for a while. It’s also worth noting that The Penguin is not technically an HBO production. It’s a Max Original like And Just Like That and the Gossip Girl revival, and so far none of those shows have been licensed to stream via Netflix.
Will The Penguin stream on Hulu?
HBO and Max’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, doesn’t have any similar licensing deals with Hulu yet, so it’s not likely that The Penguin will be available to stream there. Hulu’s parent company, Disney, is also the owner of DC’s biggest rival, Marvel. Putting the two superhero franchises together on one streaming service seems like a corporate synergy pipe dream, but stranger things have happened!
