The Batman Director Addresses Potential for More TV Shows, Penguin Season 2

HBO’s The Penguin heads into its season finale this Sunday and even as we get closer to the conclusion of Oz Cobblepot’s story, there are questions of whether there will be a second season of the fan favorite series or potentially even more television series set in The Batman’s Gotham. And while nothing has been confirmed, speaking with Interview, The Batman director Matt Reeves says there have been discussions about the future of the stories set in The Batman’s world — particularly that he’s been talking about doing more shows, not necessarily another season of The Penguin.

“Yeah. We have been talking, and it’s exciting because people are now embracing the show. My fantasy is coming into being, which is very exciting, and HBO has been incredibly supportive from the beginning,” Reeves said. “Now to see that the show is being embraced is really, really exciting. We have been talking about doing other shows. I wanted to make sure that we didn’t do the origin tale, which so many of the other series have done. I think the idea of being able to put a lens on these characters is a really exciting idea. It’s about cities and their dysfunction and the world and its dysfunction, which is what Batman stories are all about. They’re all about Gotham being a place that should be better. And you can have that experience of this almost novelistic epic crime saga, but you also just get these separate experiences. They have their own dramatic value. So, Oz’s story is Oz’s story, and the idea is to do these other stories in the same way.”

The idea of a second season of The Penguin is something that has been a topic for some time. Earlier this year, before the series — which has been promoted as a limited series — premiered, its star Colin Farrell has said he wasn’t sure about doing a second season because of the heavy toll that playing the character takes on him.

“I don’t know, man,” Farrell told Total Film earlier this year. “Don’t get me wrong — I loved it — but it got in on me a little bit. By the end of it, I was bitching and moaning to anyone who would listen to me that I f-ing wanted it to be finished. I tried to remind them that I had ‘grumpy gratitude.’”

He continued, “I was still grateful, and still honored — I grew up watching Burgess Meredith [in the ‘60s Batman TV series], and then Danny DeVito [in 1992’s Batman Returns] was my Penguin — so being a part of the lineage of that storytelling, I really did feel privileged. But by the end of it…”

Farrell also spoke about the process of getting into character physically — meaning the makeup and suit — and said that it was a major reason why a second season might not be in the cards for him.

“Lauren said, ‘Look, if I could find a way that makes sense, would you talk about it?’ and I said, ‘Absolutely,’” Farrell said. “And maybe in a year I would. But when I finished, I was like, ‘I never want to put that f-ing suit and that f-ing head on again.”

The Penguin airs new episodes Sunday nights on HBO and Max. The season finale arrives November 10th.