While fans can expect Colin Farrell to reprise his villainous role as Oswald Cobblepot in The penguinthey shouldn't expect to see Robert Pattinson's Batman.
The HBO series is a spin-off of the 2022 film The BatmanHowever, it focuses on Farrell's character trying to take control of the crime world in Gotham.
“I understand why people would want to have Batman, or feel that if Batman isn't in a show or a movie, it doesn't have the same impact,” showrunner Lauren LeFranc recently explained to SFX Magazine. “For me, I think it has a different impact. Matt's movies are through the lens of Batman, so you're up high, looking down on the city. It's a different perspective. With Oz, you're on the city streets, you're in the gravel and the mud and the dirt. He's looking up, he wants to work his way up to the top.”
LeFranc also described The penguin as a “different experience,” adding: “I think Gotham is an interesting enough city that it deserves to have more doors unlocked in it, and for us to walk through them and see what we think.”
Reeves, who served as an executive producer on the new series, also sought to ease fans' fears, saying he didn't “feel like anything fundamental was missing.”
“I feel like it's an extension of what's fundamentally there. We know this is Batman's world,” the director added. “You're taking a different path. So the specter of Batman is there. The specter of the Riddler is there. The specter of everything that happens in the last movie is there. It informs it. And that's exactly where we start.”
The penguin is scheduled to premiere on HBO and Max on September 19. Reeves is also working on The Batman sequel, due out in 2026.