Matt Reeves’ The Batman spin-off show, The Penguin, will finally begin production in February, and star Colin Farrell has teased what fans can expect from the series.
Speaking to Variety, Farrell said that his exploration of the character in The Batman, where the Penguin is a sneaky and sleezy mobster who may or may not have “dunit”, was just the “tip of the iceberg”.
“The only thing I had an idea [of] was that I wasn’t nearly getting to explore the character as much as I wanted to,” Farrell said. “Because there was all this extraordinary work done by [makeup artists] Mike Marino and Mike Fontaine and his team, and I just thought it was the tip of the iceberg, pardon the pun, that we were getting to do the six or seven scenes that we did in the film. I was grateful for them, but I wanted more.”
He went on to reiterate just how amazed he was by the makeup team’s work, and Farrell admitted that he had no plans to do a Penguin spin-off series ahead of filming.
“Honest to god, any thought I had about an extended series was to do with Mike Marino’s work. I just knew there was so much to do with it – age it up, age it down. He’s just such a genius, Mike, so it was his work that was the inspiration, really.”
Fans of The Batman world have been waiting a long time for more word of its spin-off shows. While Farrell’s series was pretty much locked in, details around the others are still hazy.
What began as a Gotham PD-centric show evolved into a horror-like series about Arkham, but both concepts are now reportedly in development as different projects.
The cast and crew of The Batman have also shared what they’d like to explore in the full sequel. Pattinson himself wans to take on the Court of Owls saga while director Matt Reeves hopes to bring Mr. Freeze to his dark and gritty Batman universe.
These could just be the beginning of a much larger universe though as Reeves is reportedly in talks with other directors and writers to create films based on Batman villains including Scarecrow, Clayface, and Professor Pyg.
In our 10/10 review of the original, IGN said: “Matt Reeves’ violent, thrilling, darkly beautiful take on The Batman more than justifies its place in the franchise’s canon.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
