THE PENGUIN Reveals First Official Look At Mark Strong's Carmine Falcone; New Clip Released

THE PENGUIN Reveals First Official Look At Mark Strong's Carmine Falcone; New Clip Released

A new image from The Penguin has been released which finally offers the first official look at Mark Strong's take on the villainous Carmine Falcone. We also have a tense new clip from the HBO/Max series...

By JoshWilding - Sep 18, 2024 08:09 AM EST
Filed Under: The Batman

There have been rumblings for a while that Mark Strong will appear in The Penguin, but that's finally 100% official courtesy of a new X post from The Batman spin-off's X account. 

Strong will play a younger version of Carmine Falcone in the series; John Turturro portrayed the character in The Batman and it's his death which created the power vacuum Oz Cobb now looks to fill in his TV show. 

Some are bound to argue that there were bigger and better roles for Strong in the Bat-verse than this, while there are also questions about why Turturro wasn't brought back to play this younger version of Falcone (makeup and minimal VFX might have been enough to pull that off). 

Still, we're excited to see what the Kingsman and Green Lantern star brings to the table here. 

Screen Rant recently caught up with executive producer Matt Reeves and asked why The Penguin is set only a week after the flood which laid waste to Gotham City at the end of The Batman

"The whole idea is that this story is about that moment that follows the movie. There's an opportunity where Carmine Falcone has had a stranglehold on power for the last 20 years in this place, and now he's dead," he explained. "And so someone like Oz, who really believes that he can get more, but no one else believes that this is his moment to strike."

"And we sort of teased that at the end of The Batman as he's staring out over the city. And we really wanted to pick things up in that moment."

Reeves added, "The other parameters that we gave to Lauren were that obviously we know that we want Oz to be in the next movie, and we know the events of that movie, and so we just said we need him to have this rise to power to the point that we get him to, and then there needs to be these events that sort of give you the sense that he's going to be entering the movie in this way."

You can see that first look at Strong's Falcone and a clip from The Penguin (head to the 6:52 mark) below.

The Penguin's cast includes Colin Farrell (Oz Cobblepot), Cristin Milioti (Sofia Falcone), Rhenzy Feliz (Victor Aguilar), Michael Kelly (Johnny Viti), Shohreh Aghdashloo (Nadia Maroni), Deirdre O’Connell (Francis Cobb), Clancy Brown (Salvatore Maroni), James Madio (Milos Grapa), Scott Cohen (Luca Falcone), Michael Zegen (Alberto Falcone), Carmen Ejogo (Eve Karlo), and Theo Rossi (Dr. Julian Rush).

The series is executive produced by Matt Reeves, Dylan Clark, Colin Farrell, Lauren LeFranc, who writes and serves as showrunner, Craig Zobel, who directs the first three episodes, and Bill Carraro.

Based on characters created for DC by Bob Kane with Bill Finger, The Penguin is produced by Reeves' 6th & Idaho Productions and Dylan Clark Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television, where Reeves and 6th & Idaho are under an overall deal. Daniel Pipski also serves as executive producer.

The Penguin premieres on HBO and Max on September 19.

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harryba11zack
harryba11zack - 9/18/2024, 8:08 AM
good actor, dc loves him
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cubrn
cubrn - 9/18/2024, 8:11 AM
@harryba11zack - is he up for the role of Storm?
harryba11zack
harryba11zack - 9/18/2024, 8:14 AM
@cubrn - lets hope so, just put a wig on him and it'd be like he walked stright out of the comics
PatchesOhulihan
PatchesOhulihan - 9/18/2024, 8:20 AM
@harryba11zack - I'm hoping they also use him for Lex Luthor, The Riddler, Black Canary, and Solomon Grundy. Darkseid and Grodd if we're lucky.
soberchimera
soberchimera - 9/18/2024, 9:28 AM
@harryba11zack - He should get another crack at Sinestro.
Biggums
Biggums - 9/18/2024, 6:31 PM
@harryba11zack - man, siniestro was PERFECT!
kazuma
kazuma - 9/18/2024, 8:16 AM
Why did they recast?
regularmovieguy
regularmovieguy - 9/18/2024, 8:25 AM
@kazuma

I’m guessing Turturro was filming Severance S2. That season has taken so long to come out and also heard there were behind the scenes creative issues.
Malatrova15
Malatrova15 - 9/18/2024, 9:07 AM
@kazuma - Turturro was touchy on set ..aparently that is bad nowadays
DesiSpiderman
DesiSpiderman - 9/18/2024, 2:29 PM
@kazuma - it’s most likely for flash back scenes:

Strong will play a younger version of Carmine Falcone in the series;
HermanM
HermanM - 9/18/2024, 8:29 AM
Strong comes off as a tougher character tho while Turturro comes off as more weasel-ish.

In other words, completely different characters...

Odd.
AC1
AC1 - 9/18/2024, 8:43 AM
@HermanM - true but I guess that could kind of work depending on how it's handled, Strong playing him when he's in his prime and a bit tougher, whereas the version we saw played by Turturro is older and relies more on his mind and has other people acting as muscle for him
HermanM
HermanM - 9/18/2024, 11:36 AM
@AC1 - ....they also look nothing alike
AC1
AC1 - 9/18/2024, 11:58 AM
@HermanM - they've clearly used hair and makeup on Mark Strong to try and make him look like a younger version of the character as played by John Turturro, it's not brilliant but it's not a million miles away either
dagenspear
dagenspear - 9/18/2024, 12:11 PM
@AC1 - Why didn't they just make John Turturro look like a younger version of himself? Why recast like this?
AC1
AC1 - 9/18/2024, 1:54 PM
@dagenspear - Maybe he wasn't available? Maybe he wasn't interested in reprising the role? Maybe he was too expensive? Could be any number of reasons
dagenspear
dagenspear - 9/18/2024, 3:41 PM
@AC1 - It seems odd to me that Mark Strong would be less expensive than Turturro. Still don't know why they didn't cast someone who'd look like him.
AC1
AC1 - 9/19/2024, 10:11 AM
@dagenspear - yeah I mean that's just guesswork, could be that Turturro just wasn't interested in reprising the role and saw it more as a "one and done" job (lots of actors dislike playing the same part multiple times, and as far as I'm aware the only role he's played twice is Jesus from TBL and there was something like 20 years between those movies), could be that the process of making Turturro look younger was too difficult/costly compared to just hiring Mark Strong... Could've also just been a creative decision that they wanted the character to look tougher when he was younger and Strong was a better fit. Who knows? 🤷
AC1
AC1 - 9/19/2024, 10:13 AM
@dagenspear - oh actually just saw there's an article explaining it, it's just down to scheduling conflicts as Turturro was unavailable
dagenspear
dagenspear - 9/19/2024, 4:52 PM
@AC1 - Odd, to me, still think they could've gotten someone who looks more like him to me.
Forthas
Forthas - 9/18/2024, 9:31 AM

"Some are bound to argue that there were bigger and better roles for Strong..."

It boggles the mind why DC has the perfect person to play Lex Luthor...and they refuse to do it. They have him playing every other ill fitting DC role they can find. Speaks to why this franchise is so not successful.
Conquistador
Conquistador - 9/18/2024, 10:33 AM
A younger version? They're only 6 years apart!?! Well either way both great actors. Would have been great to see Tuturro back for continuity's sake.
LegendaryOutlaw
LegendaryOutlaw - 9/18/2024, 10:33 AM
There’s only a 6 year difference between the two actors, how much younger is Carmine supposed to be?
EskimoJ
EskimoJ - 9/18/2024, 10:51 AM
@LegendaryOutlaw - At least six years, I guess.
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 9/18/2024, 11:44 AM
@LegendaryOutlaw - apparently they couldn’t get him back due to a scheduling conflict
SummersEssex
SummersEssex - 9/18/2024, 10:39 AM
Mark Strong is amazing.
relentless1
relentless1 - 9/18/2024, 1:38 PM
a younger version?? lmfao Mark Strong is like the same age as John Tuturro what the [frick] 😂😂😂😂
THEDARKKNIGHT1939
THEDARKKNIGHT1939 - 9/18/2024, 1:52 PM
That makes no [frick]ing sense.
eagc1995
eagc1995 - 9/18/2024, 2:23 PM
Mark is constant in the DC Multiverse
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 9/18/2024, 2:28 PM
@eagc1995 - lol

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Wonder who’ll play in the DCU?
eagc1995
eagc1995 - 9/18/2024, 3:08 PM
@TheVisionary25 - At this point they should make it a tradition to cast him anytime we have a new DC film universe XD
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 9/18/2024, 2:27 PM
Mark Strong and John Turturro only have a 6 year difference and given that the image is framed as a newspaper thing with it saying he’s funeral is scheduled makes me think they simply recast..

I wonder what the reason is but apparently it was a scheduling conflict which if so then oh well.

It would have been nice to have Turturro back since I thought he did well as this genteel , soft spoken yet still menacing crime boss but interested to see how Strong will do and the consistency between his performance and the former.

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emeraldtaurus
emeraldtaurus - 9/18/2024, 3:27 PM
When I first heard bout Mark Strong casting I was like ....nah! But that actually looks pretty damn good !
asherman93
asherman93 - 9/18/2024, 4:36 PM
I've no doubt that Strong will do a fantastic job... but he's only six years younger than John Turturro!

If they got someone who was in their early fifties or late forties, that'd make more sense
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 9/18/2024, 8:12 PM
@asherman93 - I think it’s more a straight recast then him Playing a younger version

Apparently Turturro was filming something else at the time

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