During SDCC 2024, DC Studios revealed a new look at its DC Elseworlds slate with The Penguin.
Elseworlds where The Batman universe of projects will exist alternatively, in a slate of films that don’t have to be interconnected, including Todd Phillips’ Joker films. They will not intersect with the upcoming DC Studios canon in projects like Creature Commandos and Superman, which do share a universe.
The Penguin will be one of the first continuations we will see come to life on the small screen. Max’s Colin Farrell-starring series is set to premiere September 19, and is said to pick up where The Batman concluded. At the panel for the HBO Original series, Farrell zoomed in to join executive producer Matt Reeves, showrunner Lauren LeFranc with castmembers Cristin Milioti (Sofia Falcone) and Rhenzy Feliz (Victor Aguilar) to introduce the latest trailer.
Here’s a new look at The Penguin:
Reeves confirmed that the series came out of initial ideas for his sequel to The Batman. “The first movie ends when there’s a power vacuum in Gotham, here’s this guy totally underestimated [who] nobody thinks he can do it, meanwhile he has this fire inside of him. At that moment I thought we could do that at the beginning of the next movie.” However, he explained that the concept changed when he and executive producer Dylan Clark talked to Casey Bloys and Sara Aubrey at HBO about expanding The Batman universe with shows. They told Reeves, “We really want a marquee character” and he pitched them The Penguin’s rise to power–so that’s how it came to be.
Showrunner Lauren LeFranc also discussed how Oz’s main antagonist appears in the form of Sofia Falcone, of the infamous Gotham crime family, played in The Penguin by Cristin Milioti. “You guys got a glimpse of her in the trailer that she’s not the Sofia Falcone you might be used to in the comics. And then Cristin brought her to life in this really exceptional way.”
Farrell described Milioti’s performance as his arch-nemesis in the war for Gotham as, “doing a dance with each other thats on a razor’s edge,” matching each other’s madness for control of the city with their own strengths. Falcone is out for power as much as Cobblepot–straight out of Arkham after her father’s death–and it will stir up her past with Oz, which Milioti described a “historical and volatile relationship.”
The panel ended with the news that The Batman sequel will film next year, with Penguin returning after the events of the show. The Batman sequel has also set a release date for October 2, 2026.
The Penguin will be released September 19 on HBO.
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