The Batman Epic Crime Saga is more than just a film series starring Robert Pattinson as Gotham City’s Dark Knight. Last year, The Penguin pointed the spotlight on Colin Farrell’s Oswald “Oz” Cobblepot for eight episodes and was rewarded for that effort with numerous accolades, including a Golden Globe win for Farrell and an Emmy win for Sofia Falcone actress Cristin Milioti. And as CinemaBlend recently learned, The Batman director Matt Reeves, who was among The Penguin’s executive producers, actually “liberated” the HBO show’s team in a key way that I’m sure contributed to its success.
During my conversation with production designer Kalina Ivanov about her work on Peacemaker Season 2 (including a wild fact about Earth-X’s Hitler mural), we also talked about her experience on The Penguin, which netted her an Art Directors Guild Award for Excellence in Production Design for a Television Movie or Limited Series. Here’s what Ivanov told me when I asked her how difficult a balance it was making sure that the locations in The Penguin looked similar to what we saw in The Batman, but still put a unique spin on them:
Well, Matt [Reeves] liberated us because Matt chose to shoot in London. They shot in London. We were in New York, and by nature of that, you can never be the same. You really can never be the same. And he liberated us by saying, ‘The Penguin will go into territory we haven't seen in the movie.’
The Batman and The Penguin may take place in the same Gotham City, but logistics necessitated that the two projects film on different continents. Fortunately, that worked out just fine for Kalina Ivanov, because while there obviously needed to be some visual continuity, she was afforded enough freedom to put her own stamp on this version of Gotham. As the production designer continued to tell me, there was really two specific location from The Batman that needed to be replicated for The Penguin, with Ivanov saying the following about the one that means the most to Oz:
So I was liberated from the movie, so I really didn't think at all about the movie and finding similarity with the movie except for the sets that I had to recreate at the beginning, which was the Iceberg Lounge, the exterior. And that we did very well. We really got it very right. They built it as a set in England, but we got it right as a location. We had a beautiful alley next door to it. Anyway, it was really, really well done. But I have to say, I really don't really compare myself to the movie in any way.
Kalina Ivanov mentions later in the interview that the interior Arkham was the other set from The Batman that was copied for The Penguin. Viewers spent time at the mental hospital during the Sofia Falcone-focused flashbacks in “Cent'Anni,” as well as in the finale when she was sent back there thanks to Oz’s cruel plotting. But otherwise, The Penguin prioritized delving into unexplored corners of Gotham City, and Ivanov welcomed the literal separation between filming locations to ensure that could do so and not feel like she was beholden to The Batman’s production design.
Although it’s still looking unlikely that The Penguin will return for Season 2, Colin Farrell will reprise Oz in The Batman: Part II, which is slated for October 1, 2027. Stream The Penguin and The Batman with your HBO Max subscription, and keep checking back with CinemaBlend for Part II updates as part of our ongoing upcoming DC movies coverage.
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