The Penguin Director Discusses Expanding Gotham, The Batman's Aftermath & Going Beyond PG-13

The Penguin director Craig Zobel recently revealed some exciting things about the upcoming DC series. Set in the immediate aftermath of The Batman, The Penguin brings back Colin Farrell as Oswald "Oz" Cobb, the former right hand of Gotham crime boss Carmine Falcone who's looking to become the new kingpin of the city's underworld. Having directed the series' first three episodes, Zobel confirmed some very exciting things about the show in a recent interview.

Screen Rant recently got to sit down for a roundtable discussion with Craig Zobel and other journalists, asking questions about the upcoming Penguin series and its connections to Matt Reeves' The Batman. Not only did Zobel share what it was like developing new sides of Gotham City, but he also spoke about The Penguin's unique setting so close to the aftermath of The Batman. He also shared some of the benefits The Penguin had with its ability to move beyond a PG-13 rating.

Penguin Director Craig Zobel Talks About Developing New Elements of Gotham City

"What Does Gotham Look Like During The Day?" The Director Asks Aptly

Screen Rant: Considering how much Gotham is a character itself in The Penguin, did you look to other screen versions of the city before building your own and fleshing this version of Gotham out?

Craig Zobel: Yeah, good question. We started with what Gotham is in the movie. In The Batman, which was largely only seen at night, it's very kind of often from above, often in these very gothic spaces, and we realized that the story we were telling was a story more about, you know not a mob boss, but a mid level guy, and, like, a street level guy, you know, not far away from that . And so what would the world look like from that pov?

And also, what does Gotham look like during the day? There wasn't really any scenes in the day in the movie, except for, like, one where it's raining really bad. So, like, it was kind of like, well, what does that look like? And from there, you know, what are representations of New York which has pretty much always been the kind of initial reference for Gotham, I think, at least in the movies.

Also going back to elevated trains. Basically, I was like, take me everywhere there's elevated trains, and let's see if we can make the show there. That was really kind of the initial push.

Penguin Director Reveals How The Penguin Will Depict The Aftermath of The Batman's Ending

Riddler Flooding The City Will Have Lasting Consequences

Gotham obviously isn't a great place, now more so even after it's been flooded. How did you work to make sure that the city environment and its people felt like a product of those tragic circumstances?

Craig Zobel: I think that one of the major kind of themes inside of the story is really class disparity. It's a different way to talk about class disparity inside of this that is not possible to do when your lead character is Bruce Wayne . It was exciting in that way that we got to kind of tell the story that had that thematic element.

And I just started, like, I went back and started looking at a lot of stuff. Kalina Ivanov, the production designer, and I both bought these kind of photo books from post-Katrina and just looked at, like, kind of putting yourself back and reading stuff and watching video from Katrina and what happened there and, like, how quickly the line between sort of civilization and not really happened during that was an interesting thing to kind of reflect on, and sort of assume something like that would be a similar scenario. Just truly a scary and crazy thing. It was for sure, sort of reflective of, I think, where we all started when we were trying to decide, what's the Gotham version of that?

The Penguin Is Rated TV-MA For A Very Good Reason

I wanted to talk about how The Batman's PG-13, but the series is definitely a hard TV-MA. What kind of freedom did you have from your perspective as a director, by not having to be so restricted?

Craig Zobel: Yeah, the truth was that it didn't limit us. There was no pause to try to peel back and make the PG-13 version, like 'This would be a really great move. Can we do it?' There wasn't really that debate. I wouldn't say that we were trying to make it incredibly R-rated in any particular way or going hard other than that was just sort of like, this is was the way that we were able to have the kind of most impactful beats and moments. And, yeah, it was freeing in that way.

Are there any hidden details in those first few episodes that you're, like, really, just really proud of, some cool elements that you want viewers to look out for?

Craig Zobel: I think that there are hidden things and certainly if you think about The Penguin and what you know of that character, not Colin Farrell's Oz, but The Penguin as a character, there are all these iconographic elements . The initial thought was like, don't do any of those. Don't do anything. That is like the old stories. We're making something new.

But, you kind of have to look at yourself and be like, well, he probably would use an umbrella if it's raining this bad. That became sort of a bit of a game to kind of how do we very subtly over the course of the series, and we talked about it for, like, you know, maybe by episode seven, this could happen, and by episode eight, this could happen, where we started bringing some of those kind of the icons of what it means to be The Penguin inside this universe.