Matt Reeves' The Batman will introduce new versions of several well-known Gotham City villains, including one of The Dark Knight's most recognizable foes, The Penguin.
We still don't know much about this latest live-action interpretation of Oswald Cobblepot or exactly how he'll factor in to the story, but the man who'll bring him to life - even if he is unrecognizable under a layer of prosthetics - in the movie has now given us a better idea of what to expect.
While chatting to Empire, Colin Farrel revealed that his take on "Oz" was influenced by Michael Corleone's doomed brother Fredo from The Godfather.
“[Reeves] mentioned Fredo to me,” Farrell tells the mag. "Because Fredo’s crippled by the insignificance that he lives within, in a family that is full of very strong, very bright, very capable, very violent men. Which is why he commits the act of betrayal that he does, because he’s weak, he’s kind of broken, and he’s in pain. There is a kind of fracture at the core of Oz, which fuels his desire and his ambition to rise within this criminal cabal. Where that rise goes… I would love to get to explore that in the second film, if that was ever to happen.”
It's an interesting source of inspiration, but then The Penguin has often been depicted as having a dangerous inferiority complex in the comics.
Whether The Batman gets a sequel remains to be seen, but we know Farrell will reprise the role for an upcoming Penguin HBO Max spinoff series. The show, which is described as a "Scarface-like series about the rise of the Penguin character" will delve into the villain's ascension to power in the Gotham criminal underworld, and is to be executive produced by The Batman duo Dylan Clark and Matt Reeves.
What do you guys make of Farrell's Fredo comparison? Let us know in the usual place.
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