Based on the DC Comics character of the same name, it serves as a spin-off to the 2022 film The Batman, and follows Oz Cobb's rise to power in Gotham City's criminal underworld.
Colin Farrell stars as the titular character, reprising his role from The Batman, alongside Cristin Milioti, Rhenzy Feliz, Deirdre O’Connell, Clancy Brown, Carmen Ejogo, Michael Zegen, Berto Colón, Scott Cohen, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Theo Rossi, James Madio, Nadine Malouf, Joshua Bitton, David H. Holmes, Daniel J. Watts, Jared Abrahamson, Ben Cook, Jayme Lawson, Aleska Palladino, Craig Walker, Tess Soltau, Marié Botha, Michael Kelly, and Mark Strong.
[4] The Batman director Matt Reeves suggested to studio executives that a sequel film could explore the Penguin further, but they wanted to use the idea for a spin-off series instead.
[29] Following The Batman's release, the limited series received a straight-to-series order from HBO Max using the working title The Penguin, with LeFranc confirmed to serve as showrunner and executive producer.
[31] Star Colin Farrell said in July that Reeves would not be directing the series but was providing guidance on the structure of the scripts and was involved in choosing their director.
[47] The series begins one week after the events of The Batman, following the flooding of Gotham City as depicted at the end of the film,[3] which Farrell said made for a "very tricky, very dark story".
[51] Reeves cited The Long Good Friday (1980) as an additional influence, and said the series was about the American Dream, with Oz being "underestimated... nobody thinks he's capable of doing anything [but he] believes in himself with a visceral violence".
[29] Sarah Aubrey, the head of originals for HBO Max, said the goal for the series was to explore Oz's life that is rooted in the streets of Gotham and described him as "a hustler and a strategist with his own ambitions".
[40] LeFranc, Erika L. Johnson, Noelle Valdivia, John McCutcheon, Breannah Gibson, Shaye Ogbonna, Nick Towne, and Vladimir Cvetko wrote episodes of the series.
[29] Farrell read the first episode by mid-October 2022 and called it "tasty and so unusual", and was excited to further explore the "bang up of Oz" that Reeves envisioned for the character.
[8] In February 2023, Rhenzy Feliz was cast as Victor Aguilar, a lead role which was believed to be a young man who befriends Cobb and becomes his protégé.
[10][11] Later that month, Michael Kelly, Shohreh Aghdashloo, and Deirdre O'Connell were respectively cast as Johnny Viti,[53][14] Nadia Maroni, and Francis Cobb.
[64] In August 2024, LeFranc and Reeves confirmed the creative team's decision not to feature Batman in the series, citing a desire to explore a different side of Gotham City in their story.
[74][66] Filming was set to take place in Westchester County, New York on May 16 when picketers participating in the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike caused production to shut down for the day.
[85] Ryan Scott of /Film said the teaser, which combined the series' footage with behind-the-scenes work, was "shockingly put together" given filming had only recently begun then and that it looked like a "very gritty crime drama".
James Hibberd at The Hollywood Reporter noted it included scenes that directly picked up after the ending of The Batman and that it provided a "much more expansive look" at the characters and setting.
[93] Collider's Erick Massoto noted it depicted the Penguin's strategy to become the Gotham crime boss by exploiting the grief of Falcone's family.
A recreation of the Gotham Ice Truck and Iceberg Lounge were featured, in addition to appearances from the cast and crew alongside the release of the official trailer.
The website's consensus reads: "Depicting Gotham through bone-breaking punches rather than popping onomatopoeia, The Penguin is a grounded crime saga given gravitas by Colin Farrell and a scene-stealing Cristin Milioti.
[110] Empire's Amon Warmann gave it four stars, writing that its expansion of Reeves's film was "satisfying proof that this more grounded take on the character warranted a full series".
[108] In a four-star review, NME's Jordan Bassett said that Cristin Milioti's character was "quietly menacing", and that LeFranc succeeded in creating a Gotham distinct from Reeves's, one "slightly less rainy and [...] better lit", yet one that retains "the cynicism boiled into the corruption-infested city."
Bassett felt disappointed in the show's decreased budget, observing that it hurt the series's set design, and criticized the first episode's "sluggish" pacing.
[114] MovieWeb's Julian Roman declared that "Colin Farrell needs to clear space on the shelf for an Emmy", and hailed his performance as "nothing short of extraordinary."
Reiterating on Farrell's performance, he observed that the actor "convincingly portrays a man living with a significant disability, but he's also strong and utterly merciless when needed."
[115] In a less-positive review, IGN's Erik Adams complained that "Lauren LeFranc and team have taken on more than they can handle", and that its aspects of gnarliness and blood lust are "never as sensational as the big budget and prestige-TV trappings make them out to be."
Ed Power wrote highly of Farrell's reinvention of the Penguin as "a charismatic mobster straight from a Scorsese movie", and felt his return was impressive.
"[107] Variety's Aramide Tinubu said that the robust narrative makes it a "masterful examination of criminality", and hailed it as "twisted, disturbing and deeply enthralling."
She praised Deirdre O'Connell's performance, and wrote that "the juxtaposition of the [Oz and Sofia] across the show — including flashbacks from their contrasting childhoods and their reactions to losing or gaining dominance — is among the most compelling aspects of [the series]".