Last year, The Batman depicted Robert Pattinson’s title vigilante dealing with Paul Dano’s The Riddler, a serial killer targeting corrupt Gotham City officials. But along the way, the Caped Crusader also had some run-ins with Colin Farrell’s Oswald “Oz” Cobblepot, a.k.a. Penguin, and he’ll soon be getting the spotlight in a miniseries exclusive to HBO Max subscribers. Now the first trailer for The Penguin has arrived, giving us our first taste of the baddie waging war to control Gotham’s underworld.
When we left off with Oz in The Batman, his boss, John Turturro’s Carmine Falcone, had been gunned down by Riddler, paving the way for The Penguin’s namesake to start seizing power for himself. With the series having begun filming at the beginning of March, there was enough footage to cut together this trailer giving us our first taste of Oz doing whatever it takes to become the top crime boss in Gotham City. This preview doesn’t share anything in the way of specific plot information, but for those who enjoyed the tone of The Batman and welcome an opportunity to explore the seedy underbelly of this version of Gotham, this will be the show for you.
The trailer also gives us some first looks at people we’ve known will be part of The Penguin thanks to previous casting announcements/reports. Most notably, we see Oz meeting with Cristin Milioti’s Sofia Falcone, Carmine’s daughter. While the dinner between the two looks pleasant enough, Sofia will ultimately end up battling Oz for control over Gotham’s criminal ranks. Among the other folks we’ll see in this HBO Max show are Michael Zegen as Sofia’s brother Alberto Falcone, and Clancy Brown as Sal Maroni, the gangster who was arrested during an historic GCPD drug bust, though it was later revealed that he was set up by Carmine Falcone. Rhenzy Feliz, Michael Kelly, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Deirdre O’Connell, James Madio, Scott Cohen, Theo Rossi, Carmen Ejogo, François Chau and David H. Holmes have all been cast in undisclosed roles.
As of now, it’s unclear if Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne will appear at all in The Penguin, although DC Studios co-head James Gunn has clarified that if he did so, he wouldn’t be prevented from putting on the Batsuit again. The show’s behind-the-scenes talent includes Lauren LeFranc writing and serving as showrunner, and Craig Zobel directing the first three episodes, with those two and Colin Farrell also executive producing alongside Matt Reeves, Dylan Clark and Bill Carraro. The miniseries will consist of eight episodes.
The Penguin will premiere on HBO Max sometime in 2024, so keep visiting CinemaBlend for updates on its progress. Meanwhile, The Batman: Part II is slated for an October 3, 2025 release, and there are also shows respectively focused on Arkham Asylum and the GCPD in development.
