In The Batman, Robert Pattinson gave us a detective-mode take on the Caped Crusader – a clue-hunting dark knight with a noirish flair. Next up from Matt Reeves’ Bat-verse? Get ready to say hello to his little friend. Or rather, enemy – because before The Batman Part II we’ll be seeing The Penguin, a streaming series crime story that takes Colin Farrell’s standout supporting role from Reeves’ film and bumps him up to headline status. Previously, Farrell’s Oswald Cobblepot was an endearingly scuzzy lowlife gangster with everything to prove. Now, in the power vacuum created by the death of Carmine Falcone, Oz is set on taking control of Gotham’s underworld.
As showrunner and executive producer Lauren LeFranc puts it, The Penguin will be nodding to one of cinema’s most archetypal gangster tales. “Matt [Reeves came up] with this Scarface story – a rise to power,” she explains. “I turned it into a psychological character study of this man.” As with The Batman, expect a compelling human take on a role that has, in other incarnations, involved exploding wind-up penguins. “Mobsters historically are larger than life, so there is that slightly elevated quality to it, but he’s just a man,” says LeFranc. “A very complicated man.”
Audiences will get a deep-dive into what makes Oz Cobb who he is, including an insight into his relationship with his mother. “This is what differentiates him from previous versions of the Penguin in the comics, where he used to come from a wealthy, well-known family,” LeFranc notes. “Matt had already made him an underdog in that he was number two to Carmine Falcone in the film, but we didn’t know anything about his family. So it was important to me that he comes from nothing, and he’s really aching to get more status and be seen as more important.” First you get the money, then you get the power – then you get the Bat.
Read Empire’s full The Penguin story – speaking to Lauren LeFranc about what to expect from the next chapter in The Batman story – in the Joker: Folie À Deux issue, on sale Thursday 1 August. Order a copy online here. The Penguin comes to Sky Atlantic and NOW from September.