Matt Reeves details The Penguin's crucial role The Batman trilogy

The Batman (2022) was one of the most ambitious superhero films of all time. A nearly three hour epic that introduced an entire city full of corrupt characters, The Batman was pitched and sold as an introduction to a version of Gotham that grittier and more grounded than ever before.

Matt Reeves, the film's co-writer and director, hinged a lot of this grittiness on the characters like Oswald Cobblepot aka The Penguin, played by Colin Farrell. The revamped Penguin was closer to Tony Soprano than he was, say, Danny DeVito's controversial turn in Batman Returns (1992), and the positive reception to the character has led to an HBO spinoff series.

Reeves claims The Penguin will lead directly into his sequel

The DC Universe has become more scattered in recent years, with different filmmakers presenting different versions of characters without worrying about continuity. During a recent interview with Collider, however, Reeves assured the fans that The Penguin series is very important to the overall Batman story.

Reeves confirmed that The Penguin would appear in The Batman: Part II, and that part of the appeal of telling a multi-medium story was being able to flesh out different characters in between the main films:

"That was deliberate... I wanted the origin stories of [other] characters, of the Rogues Gallery and that story was originally going to be the entrée into the next movie."

The Batman: Part II will heavily feature The Penguin

The director went as far as to call The Penguin series the definitive "entry point" into The Batman: Part II, and teased that the character will play an important role in the Batman trilogy as a whole. "Colin will be part of the movie," Matt Reeves asserted. "[The series is] absolutely connected to where we leave things in the series."

The Batman: Part II is slated for release on October 2, 2026. Superhero Hype reported that the start date for the film's production will be around February or March 2025. The Penguin series, meanwhile, will premiere September 19 on Max.