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

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.

Lauren LeFranc is set to pen the script – she was previously showrunner for YouTube Premium original Impulse, and wrote on Marvel's Agents of SHIELD. Reeves and producer Dylan Clark would executive produce with Farrell.

Reeves previously told Variety that he had mentioned a Penguin sequel to some Warner Bros. executives, "And they were like, 'Oh, we want to do that as a show."

"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.'"

The Batman grossed over $770m at the global box office and received widespread acclaim. The Penguin does not yet have a release date.

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