‘The Penguin’ Showrunner Explains Why Robert Pattinson’s Batman Won’t Appear

If you were hoping to see Robert Pattinson’s Batman in HBO’s upcoming series “The Penguin,” it’s best to temper those dreams now.

“The Penguin” picks up right after the events of 2022’s “The Batman” and follows Colin Farrell’s Oz Cobb scrabbling for more control of Gotham’s underworld in the chaos left by The Riddler’s terrorist attack on the city. In an interview with SFX Magazine, showrunner Lauren LeFranc and executive producer Matt Reeves, who also directed the film, explained why the show doesn’t need a Batman cameo.

“Matt’s films are through the lens of the Batman, so you’re high up, looking down on the city,” LeFranc said. “It’s a different perspective. With Oz, you’re in the city streets, you’re in the grit and the muck and the grime. He’s looking up, wanting to claw his way to the top.”

She continued, “I think Gotham is an interesting enough city that it deserves to have more doors unlocked within it, and for us to walk through those and see what we think.”

For his part, Reeves didn’t think the show lost anything by keeping Pattinson’s Batman offscreen for its eight-episode run.

“I don’t feel like it’s missing something fundamental,” he said. “I feel like it’s an extension of what is fundamentally there. We know this is the world of Batman. You’re going down a different alley. So the spectre of Batman is there. The spectre of the Riddler is there. The spectre of everything that happens in the last movie is there. It informs it. And it’s exactly where we begin.”

Although it was originally slated as a Max Original, “The Penguin” is set to premiere Sept. 19 on HBO.

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