‘The Penguin’ Production Designer Channeled ‘French Connection’ & ‘Scarface’ For ‘The Batman’ Spinoff

What’s black and white and red all over?

A penguin covered in someone else’s blood...

The waddling member of Bruce Wayne’s iconic collection of rogues is getting his time in the spotlight via The Penguin, HBO’s limited series spinoff of Matt Reeves’ grounded and gritty reboot of the Caped Crusader mythos.

Colin Farrell has never been better — or more unrecognizable — reprising the prosthetic-heavy role of Oswald “Oz” Cobb (better known as “Oswald Cobblepot” in the comics and previous onscreen depictions) for this masterfully captivating interlude between The Batman and its 2026 sequel.

Taking place right after the Riddler’s devastating attack that flooded the streets of Gotham City, the show follows Oz in a brazen and ruthless bid for power, seriously pissing off the top two crime families — the Falcones and the the Maronis — in the process. Complicating his plans for ascent is the unexpected return of Carmine Falcone’s daughter, Sofia (How I Met Your Mother’s Cristin Milioti), who was recently discharged from Arkham Asylum following a lengthy stint for serial murder.

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Grounding The Penguin

But if you’re expecting a top hat, monocle, and squawk-like cackle from this take on the classic Dark Knight adversary, you’ll be sorely disappointed. In keeping with the precedent established by its big screen predecessor, The Penguin completely rejects the campiness of the past (think Burgess Meredith and Danny DeVito).

“We saw this as a very real, very grounded, and much more menacing story,” series production designer Kalina Ivanov (The Boys in the Boat) tells me over Zoom. “The characters are real versus being cartoony and over-exaggerated.”

Showrunner Lauren LeFranc was so committed to a realistic tone, that she apparently forbade Ivanov from incorporating “umbrellas or birds,” two visuals heavily associated with the character, into the sets “until very critical moments,” Ivanov adds.

After speaking with The Batman’s production designer, James Chinlund, ahead of the show’s New York-based production — “We’re great colleagues and different designers, but we have a tremendous amount of respect for each other” — Ivanov decided The Penguin would require a slightly different approach.

“I think everybody understood you can't do this series continuing The Batman look,” she continues. “You are really creating a new world; you're actually informing the audience about a different side of the city. Because that's not Batman's world. In a certain way, it is, but he is not needed in our series.”

An offer you can’t refuse

Like the greatest crime sagas of all time, The Penguin explores the dark side of the American Dream and, to that end, the show draws as much from classic gangster cinema as it does from the original comics “Matt and Lauren basically agreed that we needed to do French Connection meets Scarface,” Ivanov says, also citing Greek mythology as another notable influence. “DC characters, to me, are modern mythology. They’re not any different. That’s how I was approaching it.”

For all intents and purposes, Oz is the Tony Montana of Gotham. As a rising and temperamental felon who came from nothing, he’s hungry to prove that he deserves to stand alongside the more refined elements of the city’s underworld.

While he likes to throw copious amounts of cash around, Cobb cannot purchase the classy elegance of his former boss, the late Carmine Falcone (Mark Strong taking over the role from John Turturro). “He thinks he's Carmine, but he has no taste,” Ivanov explains, pointing to Oz’s diamond district apartment as prime example of his penchant for projecting a garish, ostentatiousness lifestyle without any real substance behind it. “He took over a jeweler’s repair shop, hence the vault ... he’s got some splashy tile in the back, but it's not very attractive. It was a really interesting line to walk with his character, where it's not too gaudy. You don't want to make him a joke. He's not a cartoon, he's a real person.”

Even Farrell joined in on the process, finding a lurid piece of artwork to hang on the wall. “We riffed on what he sent us,” Ivanov reveals. “We re-interpreted it and did our own version. It was just really great to have this relationship with Colin, to be involved with his character, to develop the environment together.”

Standing up for the little guy

Oz also aspires to be the kind of benevolent kingpin whom neglected citizens can turn to when corrupt politicians invariably cater to the more affluent neighborhoods first. At its core, The Penguin is a story of “the haves and the have nots,” says Ivanov.

That side of the story manifests itself in poorer areas of the city completely decimated by the Riddler’s attack. To properly capture the aftermath of the flooding, Ivanov researched the FEMA response to Hurricane Katrina and called on her personal experience during Hurricane Sandy.

“I was in the East Village [of New York City] and our electricity got turned back on four days after the Upper East Side,” she remembers. “It was very clear that when Manhattan turned on the electricity, neighborhood by neighborhood, [it went] from the most affluent to the least affluent. The division was very clear.”

Cobb’s dream of becoming Gotham’s own version of Robin Hood might seem noble, if it weren’t for the fact that he “has no moral core whatsoever,” Ivanov muses. “He's made out of steel and ... compartmentalizes everything. Every single feeling and relationship is transactional and manipulative.”

Watch out: this flightless bird feeds on more than just fish.

The Penguin season premiere is now streaming on Max. All subsequent episodes will debut on HBO and Max Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET.