The Penguin: What to Know About Max's Batman Spinoff Series

There's a new kingpin of Gotham City. Warner Bros. Discovery on Wednesday shared the first footage and image from The Penguin, the next chapter in The Batman Saga from WB TV and DC Studios. As part of a larger announcement about the studio's enhanced streaming service combining content from HBO Max and Discovery+ as the rebranded Max, Warner Bros. Discovery dropped a new look at Gotham gangster Oswald "Oz" Cobblepot (Colin Farrell), the former right-hand man of mob boss Carmine Falcone (John Turturro). The Batman spin-off series continues the epic crime saga that filmmaker Matt Reeves began with his 2022 film, which launched the "Batverse" centered around a caped crusader (Robert Pattinson) in his second year of costumed crime-fighting.

The eight-episode DC drama follows Farrell's Cobblepot as he rises through the darkened ranks to become the Penguin in the immediate aftermath of The Batman, which ended with parts of Gotham underwater after the anarchist Riddler (Paul Dano) gunned down Falcone and flooded the city. See the first official look at The Batman spin-off series below, and read on for everything you need to know about Max's The Penguin.

New Look at Colin Farrell as The Penguin

"The Penguin show is dark, but I've just got such license to explore in it, and such a freedom beneath the make-up. There's some kind of permission you're given to explore in a way that's hard to give yourself when it's just your visage," Farrell recently told Gold Derby, adding that the Oscar-nominated Penguin prosthetics and make-up is "somehow, in a very subtle way, even better. It's just more perfected."

Reeves and his Batman producer Dylan Clark serve as executive producers on the Max Original series alongside Farrell and Lauren LeFranc (Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Impulse), who writes and serves as showrunner. Also on board as executive producers are two-time Emmy-nominated director Craig Zobel (HBO's Mare of Easttown), who directed the first three episodes, and Bill Carraro (Lovecraft Country, Dexter: New Blood). 

The Penguin TV Show Cast

Joining Farrell in the series are previously announced cast members Cristin Milioti (The Sopranos) as Cobblepot's chief gang war rival, Sofia Falcone, who subverts Cobblepot's play at her father's criminal empire; Clancy Brown (John Wick: Chapter 4) as the infamous Gotham crime boss Salvatore Maroni; and Rhenzy Feliz (Runaways), Michael Kelly (Man of Steel), Shohreh Aghdashloo (The Expanse), Deirdre O'Connell (Marvel's Daredevil), and John Cenatiempo (Joker) in undisclosed roles.

When Does The Penguin Take Place in The Batman Timeline?

"Penguin will sit immediately after the end of The Batman and temporally before the events of [The Batman — Part II]," Sarah Aubrey, HBO Max's Head of Original Content, confirmed in 2022. "The show will come out in between the two movies. Now beyond that, it's fun for the audience to know that it will be a bridge between the two, but the actual release date, I'm not at liberty to say."

Farrell later revealed Penguin picks up "about a week after the film The Batman ends," saying in an interview: "Gotham is still somewhat underwater. I read the first script for the first episode, and it opens up with my feet splashing through the water in Falcone's office."

What Is The Penguin About?

The Penguin explores "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 — as a hustler and a strategist with his own ambitions," Aubrey said. "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."

The Penguin HBO Max Release Date

Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed on Wednesday that The Penguin will stream in 2024 on Max, the streaming service formerly known as HBO Max. An exact premiere date is TBA.

Watch The Penguin Teaser Trailer

DC's The Penguin is streaming in 2024 on Max. The Max rebrand of HBO Max, combining that streamer with Discovery+ content, launches May 23rd.

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