HBO Max's Batman spin-off The Penguin has found its director

Colin Farrell as The Penguin in The Batman
(Image credit: Warner Bros./DC)

HBO Max's upcoming The Batman spin-off The Penguin has found its director.

Craig Zobel, who directed limited series The Mare of Easttown, is set to Helm the Colin Farrell-led villain series. Zobel also directed the 2020 controversial horror thriller The Hunt, as well as episodes of HBO's Westworld and CBS All Access's One Dollar.

After making his debut as The Penguin in Matt Reeves' The Batman, Farrell will go on to star and executive produce the spin-off.  The show is said to explore Penguin's journey to holding power in Gotham's underworld. The series was first reported to be in development in September.

"We're doing one with Colin [Farrell, as Oswald Cobblepot], seeing Oz rise to power, almost like a Scarface story," The Batman producer Dylan Clark told our sister publication SFX Magazine. "It's exciting to do something like that just as a standalone, but it speaks to the character and our movie, so that you'll go back to the movie [and say], 'Oh, I see that backstory there, that line refers to this.'"

For more, check out our complete guide to watching DC movies in order to get up to speed on the DCEU.

Lauren Milici
Senior Entertainment Writer

Lauren Milici is a Senior Entertainment Writer for GamesRadar+ based in New York City. She previously reported on breaking news for The Independent's Indy100 and created TV and film listicles for Ranker. Her work has been published in Fandom, Nerdist, Paste Magazine, Vulture, PopSugar, Fangoria, and more.