While we still don’t know where DC Studios’ co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran will lead the DC Universe next, Matt Reeves’ BatVerse is still running full steam ahead. During an exclusive interview with Collider’s Steven Weintraub for the 15th anniversary of Cloverfield, Reeves gave away new details about The Penguin series, which stars Colin Farrell, and revealed how the HBO Max miniseries will be essential in setting up The Batman sequel.

After making a splash at the box office with 2022’s The Batman, Reeves became one of the most valuable assets at DC Studios. So, after the Warner Bros. Discovery merger, the company still negotiated a multi-year contract to ensure that the filmmaker would stick around. That means that while Gunn and Safran are cleaning house and reorganizing the entire DC Universe, Reeves is still developing The Batman sequel and its spinoff projects.

One of these spinoff projects is a series focused on the Penguin (Farrell), who is one of Batman’s most iconic villains. The Penguin only played a supporting role in The Batman, as the right-hand man of mobster Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), but Farrell will stretch his flightless wings in the miniseries, most likely to take over Gotham after Falcone’s demise. As Reeves tells us, “We are very, very soon going to start shooting The Penguin with Colin. That is super exciting.” So, the series is not only confirmed, despite the massive DCU overall, but it’s going into production this year—and soon.

Previously Colin Farrell sounded very excited when he spoke to us about the script and series, telling us, " I read the first episode, which is just so tasty and so unusual as the character was on the page and what Matt Reeves kind of envisioned when he was thinking of this iteration of the bang up of Oz. So yeah, it’ll be, I think six or eight hours."

The Batman Threatening Penguin
Image via Warner Bros

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The Penguin might not be the only project Reeves is currently developing, as he also tells us “There are some other things we have planned too. [...] The BatVerse of what we're doing has me very, very excited, and I'm very passionate about it. So I'm excited.” Last year, Reeves was reportedly developing a series focused on Arkham Asylum and the Gotham City Police Department.

Will The Penguin Series Be Mandatory to Understand The Batman Sequel?

While the idea of a Penguin series is exciting, Reeves also points out how The Batman spinoff will be tightly connected to the theatrical releases. Reeves explains that “There's actually a whole little fabric of things we're wanting to do, the way we're doing with [the] Penguin and how that comes back into how that will lead into the sequel, and what that sequel is going to be.” It sounds like the miniseries will set the foundations for The Batman sequel, which means that fans who want to fully understand Reeves’ BatVerse movies will have to watch all the spinoffs too. That’s not bad news. The Batman was so great that we definitely wouldn't mind watching more stories in that version of Gotham City.

The gorgeous new limited-edition Cloverfield 4K Ultra HD SteelBook arrives on January 17, 2023. There’s no release window for The Penguin nor The Batman sequel, but you can expect to read more from our interview with Reeves soon. For now, check out our interview with Reeves from The Batman below: