The Penguin has been a bit of a change of pace from The Batman with a more character-driven focus, and Matt Reeves says there’s more to come.
It was unclear when it was announced that Colin Farrell’s Penguin would be getting whether or not it would even work. We’ve seen a Batman show without the caped crusader before in Gotham, and that show worked so poorly they kinda just put him in in a roundabout way anyway. But, That Batman was genuinely great, so I had faith, and so far it seems like The Penguin has done very well for itself, both with fans and critics. Part of what’s so different about it is that it’s a lot more character driven, unsurprising considering that it’s a TV show. In a recent interview between director Reeves and The Batman’s own Alfred, Andy Serkis, via Interview Magazine, Reeves made it clear that you can expect more of this kind of thing in future spin-offs.
“It’s exciting because people are now embracing the show. My fantasy is coming into being, which is very exciting, and HBO has been incredibly supportive from the beginning,” Reeves said. “We have been talking about doing other shows. I wanted to make sure that we didn’t do the origin tale, which so many of the other series have done. I think the idea of being able to put a lens on these characters is a really exciting idea. It’s about cities and their dysfunction and the world and its dysfunction, which is what Batman stories are all about.
“They’re all about Gotham being a place that should be better. And you can have the experience of this almost novelistic epic crime saga, but you also just get these separate experiences. They have their own dramatic value. So Oz’s story is Oz’s story, and the idea is to do these other stories in the same way.”
That’ll obviously be exciting news for those of you that have been enjoying what showrunner Lauren LeFranc and co have been putting down, but we obviously still don’t know what spin-offs are actually planned. We do have a name for Reeves’ Batverse, and a universe needs more than one film and a TV show (that sequel is quite a while away), but let’s just wait and see what Reeves has in store for us all.