Yet another production hit by the strikes – TV spin-off The Penguin, starring The Batman’s Colin Farrell – has resumed filming.
Like Beetlejuice 2 and numerous other productions in the works this year, The Penguin was disrupted by the writers’ and actors’ strikes which took place through much of 2023.
The Penguin, the TV spin-off from Matt Reeves’ 2022 film The Batman, originally began filming back in March, only for it to be called off as those strikes began in June. After a lengthy – and most likely, costly – hiatus of about eight months, Variety reports that shooting has now resumed on the TV series.
In it, an unrecognisable Colin Farrell reprises his role as Oswald Cobblepot, who you may remember from Reeves’ film was depicted as a mid-ranking hoodlum rather than the formidable crime boss – unlovingly nicknamed the Penguin – known from the comics. Logically enough, the TV series will chart Cobblepot’s rise from the right-hand man of the mobster Carmine Falcone (played in the film by John Turturro) to fully-fledged gangland kingpin in his own right.
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Although Turturro won’t be appearing as Carmine (for reasons that will be obvious if you’ve seen The Batman), other members of the Falcone family will. Cristin Milioti is to play Carmine’s daughter, Sofia, Michael Zegen will play Alberto, her brother, and the great Clancy Brown will appear as Gotham mob boss, Salvatore Maroni.
The Penguin is said to consist of eight episodes, and it’s expected to air on the Max streaming platform (formerly HBO Max) in late 2024.
As for the Caped Crusader, it was announced last year that a sequel to The Batman was in the works, with Robert Pattinson back in the batsuit and Reeves again directing; called The Batman – Part II, it’s set to start filming this month (November) and is currently scheduled for release in October 2025.
More on these Bat-based pieces of entertainment as we get them.
