We are less than three weeks away from the premiere of The Penguin on Max and while Colin Farrell will reprise his role as Oswald Cobblepot from 2022’s The Batman, don’t expect to see Robert Pattinson show up in the Dark Knight costume.
Lauren Franc, the HBO series’ showrunner, told SFX magazine, “I understand why people’s desire would be to have Batman, or to think that unless Batman’s in a show or a film then it doesn’t have the same punch. To me I think it packs a different punch. Matt’s films are through the lens of The Batman, so you’re high up, looking down on the city. It’s a different perspective. With Oz, you’re in the city streets, you’re in the grit and the muck and the grime. He’s looking up, wanting to claw his way to the top.”
Franc believes that this is a different experience, saying, “I think Gotham is an interesting enough city that it deserves to have more doors unlocked within it, and for us to walk through those and see what we think.” Matt Reeves, writer/director of The Batman, doesn’t believe the series is missing anything without the Caped Crusader, calling the series, “an extension of what is fundamentally there. You’re going down a different alley. So, the specter of Batman is there, the specter of the Riddler is there. The specter of everything that happened in the last movie is there. It informs it.”
The series is set to pick up right from the end of The Batman and is said to lead right into the upcoming sequel. The Penguin makes its debut on September 19th.
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Meghan Murphy
Geeking out through mental illness. Mom. Wife. Freelance writer. Pear shaped. I espouse very strong opinions on comic books and popular culture. If your wisdom is "conventional," it's probably wrong.
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