After The Batman dropped and took the superhero world by storm, it made sense why Matt Reeves looked to expand his Batman Epic Crime Saga.
While The Penguin, starring Colin Farrell, is set for release later this year, the other two announced series were shelved for now. One would’ve been focused on the Gotham Police Department, while the second was set in the Arkham Asylum.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly in a new interview, Reeves dives into what happened to these projects.
“As we were writing the movie [The Batman], I was like, ‘Hey, you know what? I think there are some cool shows that we could do,” Reeves told EW. “It was actually why I wanted to make our deal at Warner Bros.”
While working on those, executives gave Reeves notes, and the ideas will live on as some elements will be made into The Penguin. “They were like, ‘We like what you’re doing, and we want to lean harder into the marquee characters,'” Reeves said.
He adds, “What’s interesting is that, in the movie, the big red herring of the story is it seems like the person they’re looking for, that the Riddler’s pointing to must be the Penguin, some kind of informant. This movie creates a power vacuum, and because Penguin is so underestimated, people don’t really see who he is.”
Reeves says he “wanted [The Penguin] to be, not in a grandiose way, but in a mythic Shakespearean way, this kind of great tale.”
The Penguin, an HBO original series, comes this September. Watch the trailer here…
As we saw in Matt Reeves’ The Batman, The Penguin was only the lieutenant to crime boss Carmine Falcone. Now, in this new series, The Penguin is stepping up to lead crime in Gotham City.
Featuring in the cast of The Penguin are Colin Farrell (Penguin), 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), Theo Rossi (Dr. Julian Rush).
