The Batman director explains origins of The Penguin show, how it will flow into Part II

This Thursday, HBO will premiere The Penguin, a new TV show spun off from director Matt Reeves' 2022 film The Batman. But don't expect Bruce Wayne to show up; this series is all about one of his most iconic nemeses: Oswald "Oz" Cobblepot, aka the Penguin, played by Colin Farrell under layers of prosthetics and makeup. In the first movie, the Penguin is a low-level enforcer in the mob. He'll be making some big moves in the new series.

The idea of crafting a whole TV show around a supporting character from a superhero movie sounds a little suspect, but having watched most of the show by now — I was lucky enough to get screeners — I can tell you that it's very good, an exciting crime drama that combines the gritty realism of The Sopranos with the larger-than-life characters of...well, of Batman. Showrunner Lauren LeFranc has put together a series compelling enough to stand on its own, even though the show is going to funnel into The Batman Part II, which Reeves is working on as we speak.

“Lauren came in very, very early on," Reeves told Forbes. "I was in post[-production forThe Batman]. We had a conversation, [my producer friend] Dylan [Clark] and I, with [HBO CEO] Casey Bloys and [HBO Head of Original Content] Sarah Aubrey. Casey said to me, ‘Listen, I just want to make sure that you’re not hoarding all of the marquee kind of like characters for just theatrical. This is HBO! We want to do some of your marquee characters.’ I said, ‘Well, let me tell you what I had in mind. Oz’s story always continued and Colin knew that from the beginning, that he would be going into the next movie.’ So, I pitched this kind of almost like a gangster story - a Scarface story where he had been underestimated in this power vacuum that was created by the death of Carmine Falcone. He suddenly was going to do something that no one believed he could do, which is to start on the path to becoming the kingpin. When I pitched that, Casey was like, ‘That’s the show we want to do. We’re doing that show!’”

So that's the story of how The Penguin came to be. Lauren LeFranc was one of the first people to see The Batman behind the scenes, including the deleted scenes with the Penguin. "I wanted her to absorb everything about that and then describe to her the shape of where I wanted it to start," Reeves said. “At the end of The Batman, you see [the Penguin] looking out over the city - and so, I said that’s where it should start and we then should see that kind of ascent and then we need it get him to this place, where he in these events is ready to join the [Part II] film.”

I guess that constitutes a spoiler, since it means that the Penguin will survive his upcoming show and appear in The Batman Part II, which is due out in 2026. But I guess we all saw that coming.

Matt Reeves hope to shoot The Batman Part II in 2025

As for the next movie, Reeves is currently writing it alongside Mattson Tomlin. "We have a great relationship - he loves these characters the way I do," Reeves said. "It’s funny - one of the reasons I like writing with someone else is it’s a way for you to spend time with the characters together because the two of you have a friendship through these characters, in addition to our true friendship, which we definitely have, and he’s a wonderful, wonderful person. I think that just being able to go, day in and day out, and work with him on this story is an exciting thing. We’re getting near the end of the script and we’ve shared big parts of the script with DC and with the studio. They are very, very excited and we’re hoping to gear up at the beginning of next year and hopefully be shooting sometime maybe mid-year or something like that - that’s the goal. So, we’re in a good place. We’re very excited about the story, so knock on wood.”

Interestingly, Mattson Tomlin is also working on a Game of Thrones prequel series about Aegon the Conqueror, although we don't know if that will ever actually make it to air. At minimum, I imagine that The Batman Part II is his priority right now. That movie is scheduled to come out on October 2, 2026.

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