One of the villains from The Batman, the Penguin, is getting his own spinoff TV show, and while that’s exciting news for this version of the character, it might also mean that his role in The Batman will be disappointingly small. Batman is one of the most beloved and popular characters in comic book history, and as such he has been adapted to other media for years. However, the Caped Crusader hasn’t had the best of luck on the big screen, with many successes but also failures, and he’s getting a new chance in Matt Reeves’ The Batman.
After Ben Affleck’s version of Batman failed to connect with the audience in Zack Snyder’s Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne, and it will follow him during his second year of crime-fighting in Gotham City, meaning this will be a younger Batman. The movie will also see a couple of the character’s most famous villains: Selina Kyle/Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz), Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), Oswald Cobblepot/Penguin (Colin Farrell), and Edward Nashton/Riddler (Paul Dano), the latter serving as the main antagonist.
So far, the teaser and trailer for The Batman haven’t revealed much about the plot nor its characters, but one that has caught the attention of the audience, in big part thanks to its actor’s physical transformation, is the Penguin. It’s unknown what the Penguin’s role in The Batman will be, but the trailer showed he will be part of some action moments and will come face to face with the Dark Knight himself. There’s a lot of anticipation around Farrell’s performance as the Penguin, but now that the character has been given his own spinoff TV show, fans shouldn’t expect him to have a big role in The Batman, as disappointing as that may be.
As mentioned above, the Penguin isn’t the main villain in The Batman, and that role has been given to the Riddler, who has been teased in the trailers as the mind behind most of the chaos around Gotham. Now, The Batman is already risking having too many villains, so it’s understandable that the spotlight will be more on one or possibly two characters (the other being Catwoman, as the trailer hinted at her romantic connection with Batman) but not all of them. The Penguin getting his own spinoff show suggests The Batman won’t give him enough screen time for the audience to get to know him, and so there’s the risk of disappointing the audience with how small his role will be. Of course, the spinoff series can make up for that, more so as it will reportedly explore his rise through Gotham’s criminal underworld, thus expanding on his role in The Batman.
Luckily for fans, Penguin’s role in The Batman, but at least there’s hope for the TV series to deliver in ways that the movie couldn’t.
