It feels like a long time since The Batman was released in theaters, making it easy to forget that it remains arguably the year's best comic book movie. The success of Matt Reeves' DC Comics adaptation means a number of HBO Max spinoffs are now in the works, with the first of those set to revolve around Colin Farrell's Oswald Cobblepot.
Now, some new details about The Penguin have been revealed by HBO Max Head of Originals Sarah Aubrey during a recent interview with Variety.
"Penguin will sit immediately after the end of The Batman and temporally before the events of the second movie," she confirmed. "The show will come out in between the two movies."
The executive would go on to say that she wants audiences to know the show will serve as "a bridge between the [The Batman and its sequel]," but declined to offer any news on a release date, confirming she's "not at liberty to say."
"The goal of this is to show what Oz’s life is like and that’s very much in the streets of Gotham, trying to get up and over as only the Penguin can," Aubrey continued. "As a hustler and a strategist with his own ambitions. It is a great example of having the time over eight episodes to tell a longer-arc character story with a lot of delicious twists and turns and new characters."
"It’s very much going to be about Gotham at that street level, because he’s not flying around like Batman does. We are all embracing that as a very specific experience for audiences to have."
This series definitely sounds like an important chapter in the story Reeves is telling in Gotham City, and it does sound like The Batman 2 will pick up quite soon after the villain's spin-off. If so, we'd bet on the franchise remaining in that "Year Two" period rather than jumping into the future as some have speculated.
The Penguin (which is only the show's working title) doesn't currently have a release date.
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