Colin Farrell goes full gangster for brooding noir series ‘The Penguin’
2022’s The Batman was a film that brought a new edge and style to the Dark Knight, and audiences were spellbound by the level of detail and passion that director Matt Reeves brought to the world of Batman. In a film with exceptional casting, one of the standout performances came from Academy Award-nominated actor Colin Farrell as Oswald ‘Oz’ Cobblepot, a foot soldier in the Falcone Crime family who possessed grand ambitions for money, power and influence.
Now, with the forthcoming miniseries The Penguin, audiences will get to see Oz’s rise to power and just how far he’ll go to take what’s his, and this is going to be a noir-drenched rollercoaster of tension!
Watch the all-new trailer for The Penguin below:
Here’s the official synopsis:
Taking place one week following the events of The Batman, the series explores the rise to power of Oswald “Oz” Cobblepot / Penguin in Gotham City’s criminal underworld.
Created by Lauren LeFranc with the assistance and direction of Matt Reeves, The Penguin is an eight-episode limited series that will bring a new street-level perspective to Reeves’ vision of his Gotham City, and audiences will be placed directly in the path of a boiling and intense neo-noir thriller that has shades of both The Godfather, The Long Good Friday and Scarface, and which will go full throttle on one man’s quest for ultimate power.
Colin Farrell again brings everything to the role of Oz, and we see a very layered performance of a flawed and dangerous character with many sides to him. Possessed of a burning fire to prove himself in the mano-o-mano world of the Gotham criminal underworld, there’s no boundary he will not cross to take what he wants.
Farrell brings the same level of moxy and attitude to the character that we first saw in The Batman, but this new series will allow him to fully explore the character’s unique psychology, and audiences will get to sort of ‘see under the hood’ and come to learn what makes this character tick. On what audiences can expect from the series, Farrell has described the series as being ‘as dark as night’, and with its crime noir tonalities, we’re looking at a series that will explore the very shadow of the American Dream and what happens when a nobody decides to be a somebody.
The underlying criminal noir element that was present in The Batman will be fully explored in this new series, and the new trailer gives audiences a greater snap of what’s to come. Dark and brooding, with a focus on the shadows, The Penguin is a real street-level look at the underworld of Gotham, and there’s an intensity and edge to the set pieces and style of the series. Following in the tradition of the likes of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire, this is a series that will maximise its exploration of the Mafia life, and we could be in the making of another guaranteed mob classic. Farrell is also extremely excited to pursue more options in his performance and to show off the incredible work of make-up artist Mike Marino.
The Penguin’s creator, Lauren LeFranc, has mined the depths of the Batman universe for this series. Audiences will be introduced to characters including the likes of Cristin Milioti’s Sofia Falcone, the estranged daughter of the now-deceased Carmine Falcone (John Turturro). She’s a dangerous and vindictive Mafia daughter who has no desire to be pushed aside in this new free market space of underworld opportunity. There’s also long-time cult favourite Clancey Brown as Falcone’s rival Salvatore Maroni, who has his own bone to pick, and it’ll be an interesting game of cat and mouse between himself and Oz.
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The Penguin is shaping up to be a must-watch series this year, and with its brilliant design, eerie worldbuilding, and cast at the top of their game, this is a series that will blow audiences away when it arrives on Neon and SKY TV in September.
Image: HBO/MAX
