Summary
The Penguinhas proven its worth a hundred times over as a spinoff and as a standalone experience, but a prominent crewmember reveals that the successful show presented a few notable difficulties that not even its theatrical parent project had to contend with.
The Penguinmight be the golden boy of recent spin-off projects, as the show not only lived up to the quality and tone of Matt Reeves’ 2022 projectThe Batmanbut even went a step further to prove itself. Managing to overcomethe heavy task of making its titular protagonist unlikeable,The Penguineffectively cemented its place as the most accomplished show in the genre in a long while. Starting strong and making even stronger strides over its eight-episode run, which saw episodes hit linear TV on HBO and pop up for streaming on Max, the show came to a wicked, grimly satisfying end that defined Oz Cobb as a true villain and set up more stellar storytelling in Reeves’ Elseworld universe.
With the season complete,The Penguinhas been racking up a ton of award nominations, critical acclaim, and fan appreciation, but all that didn’t come without some serious trials and tribulations in one important department. Speaking toTheWrapin a recent interview,The Penguinmakeup designer Mike Marino, who was responsible for turning leading man Colin Farrell from handsome Irishman to despicable Gotham gangster, revealed that bringing the character to life was significantly harder to do on the show than in 2022’sThe Batman.“It was harder on every level,” Marino said. “We always try to build things to look great in person. My mentality is if you get it to look good in person, it’ll look good on film. But now we’re in different lighting environments (with) less control. We have extreme close-ups of makeup. It’s much more difficult.” While the performance was stellar, Farrell’s Oz Cobb wasn’t the main focus ofThe Batman, leading to more forgiving conditions for the makeup team.
In addition to pointing out the differences brought on by the requirements of filming a show centered on the villain, Marino also revealed one particular pain point that increased the difficulty ofThe Penguin. “Colin has a huge head of hair that doesn’t want to stay down,” Marino explained. “That’s why he’s always wearing a headband in interviews and stuff—hair’s wanting to stick up. So flattening that every day and making it look like he’s bald is the biggest challenge. And then the lighting and the coloration and all of those things play. There’s a million puzzle pieces and factors that will make or break this.” While Farrell, whohad quite a hard time onThe Penguinset himselfduring production, had consented to shave his head for his appearance inThe Batman,the actor decided against taking on that sacrifice a second time for the show, introducing this previously absent problem into the equation.
CGI has come to dominate the comic book movie genre due to many of the characters and concepts explored in those projects being difficult to achieve with practical effects, butThe Penguinhas the good fortune of being an exception to this trend. With the show’s main character needing prosthetics and extensive cosmetic tinkering to exist, the makeup department is even more important than usual, and they delivered.
Marino and many others on the team are intimately familiar with the character in his many comic iterations, and this showed in the work they did. This is why among many other establishment honors for the show,The Penguinattracted nominations for makeup, special makeup effects, and hair styling (clearly not for Oz), all of which are clearly well-deserved. WhileThe Penguindoesn’t need a season two, Reeves has revealed that talks are ongoing for another installment of the project with showrunner Lauren LeFranc. If a second season is agreed on, the makeup department will certainly have their fingers crossed that Farrell commits to the role up top to make the work easier this time around. Fans certainly wouldn’t mind another season of the same sort of compelling character work, and a second season could set up the third film in the planned trilogy ofThe Batmanin the same way season one did for the second film.
All told, it’s becoming more and more obvious thatReeves’TheBatmanfilms really could be more than a trilogyif Hollywood lets it, in the same vein as Tom Holland’s run asSpider-Man.While there’s little doubt that Oz Cobb will get what’s coming to him sooner rather than later, characters like him are the exact reason why a franchise likeThe Batmanhas so much potential. For now, fans can only wait and see what the filmmaker and creative team make of the golden opportunity that the hard work onThe Penguinhas granted.
The Penguinis available to stream on Max.
The Penguin
Created by Lauren LeFranc and starring Colin Farrell, The Penguin builds on 2022’s The Batman. The Max series chronicles the eponymous villain’s attempt to reach Gotham’s criminal peak, rising through the underworld in the middle of a power struggle.
