Colin Farrell excited for HBO's The Penguin series, 'I Wanted More'

Little is known about the upcoming The Penguin series starring Colin Farrell, but in a recent interview, the actor explained that his appearance in The Batman was just the beginning of the character.

During a recent appearance at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Farrell spoke to Variety and revealed how the series ended up coming to fruition. According to Farrell, he had no idea the character would get a series when he joined Matt Reeves' The Batman, but wanted to explore more immediately.

"The only thing I had an idea was that I wasn't going to explore the character as much as I wanted to," Farrell said. "Because there was all this amazing work done by [makeup artists] Mike Marino and Mike Fontaine and his team, and I just thought that was the tip of the iceberg, pardon the pun, that we were going to do the six or seven scenes that we did in the movie. I was grateful to them, but I wanted more."

Farrell went on to say that he then spoke with producer Dylan Clark about exploring the character more, but what really made him want to do was what he looked like Oswald Cobblepot .

"Honestly, any thought I had about an extended series was about the work of [makeup artist] Mike Marino. I just knew there was so much to do with it – getting older, getting old," Farrell said. "He's just such a genius, Mike, so his work was the inspiration, really."

"Penguin will sit down immediately after The Batman ends and temporarily before the events of the second film. The show will be released between the two films. Now beyond that, it's fun for audiences to know it will be a bridge between the two, but the actual release date, I'm not at liberty to say," Sarah Aubrey, Head of Originals at HBO Max, recently revealed.

The limited drama will be based on DC characters created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger. It is written by Lauren LeFranc, who is also the showrunner. The first two episodes will be directed by Craig Zobel.

The next The Penguin series will be produced by Dylan Clark and Matt Reeves of The Batman, Farrell, LeFranc, Daniel Pipski, Adam Kassan and Rafi Crohn. It is a joint project between 6th and Idaho, DC Entertainment, Dylan Clark Productions and Warner Bros. TV.