The Batman introduced us to Colin Farrell's "Oz," a.k.a. The Penguin before he was The Penguin. While we'd expected the villain's story to continue in The Batman II, we're instead getting a TV series, appropriately titled The Penguin, bridging the gap between the two movies.
We anticipate the Max spin-off to end with Oz becoming Gotham City's all-powerful crimelord and, along the way, Robert Pattinson will almost certainly make an appearance as the Dark Knight.
During a recent interview with HeyUGuys, Farrell talked more about what DC fans can expect from The Penguin and made it clear it will feature the same R-Rated violence as The Batman.
"Oh, tons of violence, abject darkness and a man and a great struggle to try and claw his way to the top" he teased. "You know, there’s a power grab in Gotham now. It’s dark, man. Lauren LeFranc with her room of writers wrote eight extraordinary episodes."
"I mean, just really, really bold stuff. I couldn’t believe that it got as dark as it gets." Farrell would go on to say that The Penguin, "would be a Hard R."
That's an exciting prospect and one which promises a no-holds-barred approach to telling this story. Needless to say, Oz's journey to obtaining ultimate power in Gotham is bound to be on a road paved with blood.
Check out the actor's comments in full below.
Farrell previously said that The Penguin will, "[Chronicle] Oz’s rise to power, filling that power vacuum created when Falcone was killed. Matt’s idea was to have the Penguin show begin about a week after the end of the Batman film."
"And if it works, if the trajectory is interesting, and the audience goes for it, and we do our jobs right, the second [The Batman] feature will pick up where the HBO show will end."
The Penguin stars Colin Farrell, Cristin Milioti, Rhenzy Feliz, Michael Kelly, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Deirdre O'Connell, Clancy Brown, and Michael Zegen.
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.
As noted, The Batman spin-off premieres on Max this fall.