The Penguin (TV series)

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

One of the many fine things about Matt Reeves’ The Batman was Colin Farrell’s transformation into one Oswald Cobblepot - and it’s rare these days when you want to see more of a villain.

 

So, you got it. The series picks up a week after the movie ends…

 

SPOILERS FOR BOTH THE MOVIE AND SERIES BELOW…

Spoiler

At the end of the movie, we left Gotham in a vulnerable state - flooded and in disarray. (It’s not explicitly stated that it’s the “No Man’s Land” scenario, but close enough). The serial killer version of the Riddler wound up in Arkham making new friends, and the Bat dedicated himself to helping rebuild.
 

The criminal underworld is in chaos too, with the death of Carmine Falcone and a major bust crippling the Maroni family. As we know, power abhors a vacuum: and ever the opportunist, Oz wants a crack at it.

 

Of course, Sofia and Alberto Falcone (Cristina Milioti and Mike Zegen) and a wounded and angry Sal Maroni (the ever wonderful Clancy Brown) aren’t about to hand him the town keys on a silver platter.

 

There’s not much to go on beyond the teaser (plus the in-production original teaser from 2023 below) and cast notes at this point. Matt Reeves is only EP on this, but the directors and writers have some decent creds to their names.

 

 

What do we think?

Edited March 24 by ThaOGDreamWeaver

[BrandX]

I'll check it out, but sounds kinda meh without Batman.

[InvaderStych]

On 3/24/2024 at 9:35 AM, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

What do we think?

 

Interested, even if I am certain there won't be nearly enough scenes with the wonderful Shohreh Aghdashloo. Props to the casting team though, lots of great talent in that trailer.

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

19 hours ago, BrandX said:

I'll check it out, but sounds kinda meh without Batman.

Even if the Bat isn't in it per se, I suspect he'll be some kind of lurking threat/presence.

[Haijinx]

I could see this possibly working, but is it real?

 

I imagine we could get Spitfire in a antivillian role, who was a great character before they ruined her. 

 

Katana perhaps. 

 

Maybe a reimaging of huntress who the movies ruined.  

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

On 4/21/2024 at 2:02 AM, Haijinx said:

I could see this possibly working, but is it real?

Not just real, nearly finished: filming completed in February with only a handful of pickups, and it's in post-production at the moment.

Release is expected probably Thanksgiving-ish.

 

As to who's going to be in it DC-wise: a lot of the main character names haven't been released yet, probably to avoid spoilers. But I think it's going to be very underworld-focussed, so not much additional cape-related action if any.

 

On that note, I'm not seeing any GCPD or legal system characters show up on the cast list either - Jim, Harvey B, Renée, Angel, Maggie, Harvey D, so all about the crimelords.

 

One name we do have as a major-ish player - or at least listed for 5 eps - is Dom Gigante, played by the wonderfully-named and rather large Myles Humphus.

(That name woulda been no fun in high school.) The character winds up marrying Sofia Falcone (Christina Milioti), so maybe they're pencilling him in as a literal heavy made good.

[Techwright]

8 hours ago, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

One name we do have as a major-ish player - or at least listed for 5 eps - is Dom Gigante, played by the wonderfully-named and rather large Myles Humphus.

(That name woulda been no fun in high school.) The character winds up marrying Sofia Falcone (Christina Milioti), so maybe they're pencilling him in as a literal heavy made good.

 

I've long been irritated by Hollywood's even longer habit of forcing actors to pick a stage name because some pencil-pushing jerk didn't like the real name.  However, I might actually see a need in this case, and am rather surprised a stage name wasn't forced. 

 

Did a quick search and turns out that Myles has stunt doubled for The Rock, so yeah "rather large" indeed.  But also...

 

I'm really surprised they used the name Dom Gigante.  Are you sure it's not Rocco Gigante?  Domenico Gigante is in prison for allegedly committing a quadruple murder in Florida back in March 2023.  I'd find it highly ironic if they stuck with the name.  Now Rocco Gigante is listed as Sofia Falcone's husband in the DC fandom wiki and other online sources. If the series did make his name "Dom", I'd want to hear why.

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

6 hours ago, Techwright said:

Now Rocco Gigante is listed as Sofia Falcone's husband in the DC fandom wiki and other online sources. If the series did make his name "Dom", I'd want to hear why.

Beats me. Maybe they're merging characters, or I misinterpreted one of the stories, but there's no cast member named as Rocco yet.
(James Madio is currently unassigned, and could probably carry that off.)

 

Or, quite possibly, Sofia has some "side interests". If Tony Soprano can get away with borrowing other family members' girlfriends and mistresses, it's only fair.

 

But unless 5 eps of this are set in or around a Sunshine State slam, he could be a (very) much larger character.

 

Edited April 25 by ThaOGDreamWeaver

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

New teaser:

Doesn’t give us much more plot wise but does give us a little more flavour. Gotham gangland played more-or-less straight.

[TTRPGWhiz]

Always down for stories about Gotham in which Batman doesn't appear. It's a great big city with a lot of stuff going on; it's cool to see the camera focus on something other than Bruce Wayne.