The Penguin HBO Max show: Cast, plot & more

An image of Colin Farrell as The Penguin in The BatmanWarner Brothers

Colin Farrell reprises his role as The Penguin in HBO Max’s The Batman spin-off show. Here’s everything you need to know about The Penguin HBO Max show.

The streets of Gotham City are flooded with crime and Colin Farrell’s The Penguin is out to seize control. Before Matt Reeves delivers The Batman 2 to the big screen, fans of Robert Pattinson’s take on the Dark Knight won’t have to wait too long for another hit of DC goodness.

Collin Farrell’s Oswald Cobblepot is getting their HBO Max show, as The Batman establishes its own shared universe away from the DCEU.

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So, prepare yourselves for another descent into Gotham’s underworld. Here’s all you need to know about The Penguin HBO Max show.

Contents

The Penguin HBO Max: Is there a release date?

There is no official release date for The Penguin right now. However, we speculate the upcoming The Batman spin-off will arrive by early 2024.

If you’re keen to watch it and you’re in the U.S, you’ll need an HBO Max subscription. It is likely that it will be available for Sky subscribers in the UK, though this has yet to be confirmed.

The Penguin HBO Max: Who will be in it?

Currently, the only confirmed cast member is Colin Farrell, who will be reprising the titular role. The Batman made mention of Salvatore Maroni, the brutal gangster at the top of Gotham’s underworld. Perhaps the show will finally put a face to the name.

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The Batman sequel is still in the worksYouTube: Warner Bros. Pictures
Batman crossed paths with The Penguin during his raid of The Iceberg Lounge.

On October 31, Deadline reported that Cristin Milioti (How I Met Your Mother) had been cast as Sofia Falcone, daughter of Carmine Falcone. Falcone, who was killed in The Batman, runs one of the major criminal families in Gotham City, so it seems likely that she will attempt to take her father’s place, possibly as an antagonist to Penguin.

Of course, many of us are wondering whether Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne will appear. It is possible that he may cameo in the show.

The Penguin HBO Max: What will it be about?

Plot details have yet to emerge for The Penguin, but we do know that the show will be set at least one week after The Batman’s conclusion. The Penguin “starts about a week after the film The Batman ends. So Gotham is still somewhat underwater,” Farrell said to Extra.

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“I read the first script for the first episode, and it opens up with my feet splashing through the water in Falcone’s office.”

Speaking with Collider, he also revealed that he has “read the first episode, which is just so tasty and so unusual as the character was on the page and what Matt Reeves kind of envisioned when he was thinking of this iteration of the bang up of Oz.”

The Penguin will be getting his own spinoff seriesYouTube: Warner Bros. Pictures
The Penguin will have an opportunity to expand his operations following The Batman.

The show will likely be “six or eight hours” according to Farrell. Though Reeves is busy prepping The Batman’s sequel movie, Farrell has assured fans that “Matt Reeves is all over it. And sure Matt is borderline OCD when it comes to his focus and trying to do something new and original and with feeling and aesthetic and all that good stuff.”

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In addition to this, it appears the series will also be directly linked to The Batman 2 and the greater Matt Reeves universe. When speaking with Collider, Reeves revealed that The Penguin won’t just be a standalone series.

“There’s actually a whole little fabric of things we’re wanting to do, the way we’re doing with [the] Penguin and how that comes back into… how that will lead into the sequel, and what that sequel is going to be.”

Reeves added that “there are some other things we have planned too. […] The BatVerse of what we’re doing has me very, very excited, and I’m very passionate about it. So I’m excited.” 

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Craig Zobel (The Mare of Easttown) will be directing the first two episodes.