The Penguin’sshowrunner reveals what it was like creating a Gotham series that didn’t include The Batman. Set in the same world as Matt Reeves’The Batmanand before the events ofThe Batman Part II, Max’s upcomingPenguinsees Colin Farrell returning to the role of Oswald “Oz” Cobb, the former right-hand man of Gotham crime boss Carmine Falcone who’s now set his sights on ruling Gotham himself. However, Oz will also have to contend with Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti), Carmine’s daughter.
Screen Rantrecently got to sit down at a roundtable discussion withPenguinwriter and showrunner Lauren LeFranc and other journalists. During the interview,Lauren talked about the goal behindThe Penguinas a show that did not include Robert Pattinson’s Batman, as well as the new relationships Oz forms as he seeks power in Gotham’s underworld. LeFranc also talked about developingSofia Falcone as a major Gotham powerhouse in her own right.
Lauren LeFranc Confirms How Liberating It Is To Create A Gotham Show Without Batman
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Screen Rant: You get to tell a story in Gotham that isn’t defined by Batman himself, and Oz doesn’t seem particularly concerned or care about The Batman either. How liberating was it to tell a story like that?
Lauren LeFranc: It was really liberating, honestly. You know, I think the most important thing to me was to make sure that our characters are worth watching on their own,that the stories that we’re telling are engaging enough that you don’t miss The Batman and that you stop thinking about him. You know, I understand why there’s so much discussion and fervor over ‘is Batman on the show or not’? Because I had those questions too, early on.
But ultimately, to me, I’m so interested and compelled by our actors and by the characters themselves that I hope, and I hope other people are, that it was really nice to just be able to tell Oz’s world and, like, see the seedy underbelly of Gotham and not cater to other voices.
You know, we get to really wholeheartedly spend time with Oz and these other really interesting characters and dig deeper into them. And I think that is how you get to have more rich storytelling in that way for these particular characters, at least. And then that affords Matt Reeves tons of opportunity to dig deeper into Batman again in the sequel.
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Oz Cobb’s Relationship With Victor Has A “Perverted Batman and Robin Dynamic”
LeFranc Asks A Very Important Question: “Why Doesn’t Oz Have Anybody?”
In my review of the show, I call the relationship between Cobb and Vic a sort of perverted version of a Batman and Robin story. Was that the intention to draw that parallel?
Lauren LeFranc: Yeah, I mean, it is a place where I started when I was thinking about a mentor-mentee relationship.For me, it was, well, Batman gets Robin in many comics. Why doesn’t Oz get anybody?And what would that relationship be like? And obviously, in a lot of crime stories, there is often that sort of dynamic of a mentor mentee and what that looks like.
I thought it’d be really fascinating to follow Oz and meet a kid like Victor who’s also emblematic of so many people in Gotham we don’t often get to meet, you know, and in a neighborhood that’s, you know, poorly impacted by the flood that happens at the end of the film (The Batman). So to me, it just felt like an interesting way to investigate our characters more deeply.
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Lauren LeFranc Reveals The Inspirations Behind Sofia Falcone’s New Story
The Daughter of Gotham’s Biggest Crime Boss (Who’s Spent Time In Arkham)
Cristin Milioti’s Sofia is a powerhouse in the show, both performance and character-wise. Can you talk about crafting her villainous origin story while also juggling the Penguin’s own at the same time?
Lauren LeFranc: I really wanted an interesting antagonist for Oz, and I also selfishly wanted an interesting, complicated female at the center of the show, and so I just started to question a little bit who that might be. It made a lot of sense to me that Sofia Falcone would exist on this show because she’s Carmine Falcone’s daughter in the comics.But obviously, my version of Sofia is quite different from previous depictions.
She has a much more complex relationship with her father than in the comic iterations of Sofia.I envisioned Rosemary Kennedy a lot in my creation of Sofia because she came from a very prominent, wealthy family, and her father put her in a mental institution, and we don’t really know her story, and she ended up getting a lobotomy. And it’s very tragic. So to me, I’ve always thought that that story was interesting and worth exploring more deeply, and I felt like there was a great opportunity to introduce Sofia, who’s coming from Arkham State Hospital.
The Penguin
Cast
Created by Lauren LeFranc, The Penguin is a crime-drama spin-off television series of 2022’s film The Batman. Set shortly after the events of The Batman, Oz Cobb, A.K.A. the Penguin, begins his rise in the underworld of Gotham City as he contends with the daughter of his late boss, Carmine Falcone, for control of the crime family’s empire.
