Fans expecting to see Colin Farrell’s Penguin in a much larger role in “The Batman Part II” are going to be disappointed, as the Irish actor, while praising the script from Matt Reeves and Mattson Tomlin, has now confirmed he isn’t going to be in it too much.
“I haven’t got much to do on it, just a little bit. I read the script and it’s extraordinary,” Farrell told Deadline in a recent in-depth interview to promote his upcoming Netflix film “Ballad of A Small Player” helmed by Edward Berger (“Conclave”).
When the subject of a second season of “The Penguin” (a huge viewership win for HBO Max and has earned an impressive 24 Emmy nominations) was brought up, Farrell sounds a little skeptical if it’s even “a good idea,” but isn’t entirely closing the door on the prospect.
“I have no idea if it’s happening. I know that I heard rumblings that they were thinking they’d like to do a second season, but I don’t know if it’s a good idea. I don’t know the way you go back to the trough…And part of me wants to go, ‘Just let it go, people. We got away with it. Leave it as it is.’ But, look, if they came up with a fantastic idea or something like that, of course I’d be open to it.”
Oscar-winner Jeffrey Wright (“American Fiction,” “Highest 2 Lowest”), who is expected to reprise the Jim Gordon role in the sequel alongside Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, and Andy Serkis, recently commented on the backlash of his casting as Bruce Wayne’s crime-fighting cohort during a chat with Collider, calling it “f***ing stupid and racist.”
“The Gordon thing, that’s another level. I guess increasingly now, I’m looking forward to getting back to it, but I really find it fascinating the ways in which there’s such a conversation, and I think even more of a conversation now, about Black characters in these roles. It’s just so f***ing racist and stupid. It’s just so blind in a way that I find revealing to not recognize that the evolution of these films reflects the evolution of society, that somehow it’s defiling this franchise not to keep it grounded in the cultural reality of 1939 when the comic books were first published. It’s just the dumbest thing. It’s absent all logic,” Wright said.
We don’t have a lot of concrete details about the second film. And that void of information over the last couple of years has led to rampant rumors of various Batman rogues, such as Court of Owls, Clayface, Mr. Freeze, Two-Face, and Joker (Farrell’s “Banshees of Inisherin” co-star Barry Keoghan was cast in the first installment), showing up.
However, it should be pointed out that many of these villain rumblings were making the rounds LONG before a script draft even existed and were shown to DC Studios/Warner Bros., so we should advise caution on that front.
With production aiming to kick off in April, “The Batman Part II” is looking to meet that new release date of October 1, 2027.
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