Colin Farrell Was Worried HBO Would Cancel The Penguin Because Of One Reason

From the moment Colin Farrell's Oswald Cobb entered the fray in Matt Reeves' "The Batman," it was obvious that this version of the iconic Gotham crime lord is less likely to wield a trick umbrella than he is to channel his inner Tony Soprano as he vanquishes his enemies within organized crime. HBO's darkly excellent "The Penguin" spin-off series takes this ball and runs with it, fleshing out Gotham City's criminal underbelly to the tune of critical acclaim and 24 Emmy nominations, including a Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie nod to Farrell himself.

In hindsight, it may seem like "The Penguin" was always destined for success, considering how well Farrell portrays the character in "The Batman." However, nothing is certain in the entertainment business. Like many other projects, "The Penguin" had to take a break from filming during the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike – but more pressingly, Farrell was acutely aware of Warner Bros. perma-shelving the $90 million, Leslie Grace-starring "Batgirl" movie in 2022 due to then-new CEO David Zaslav's changes in company strategy. In an interview with Variety, Farrell noted that this knowledge made him genuinely concerned that "The Penguin" might also never see the light of day:  

"In a world where they can make a 'Batgirl' film and then just can it. I don't understand it — the debits and credits and ledgers and, f******, all that stuff — but they can decide that it's economically advantageous to just shelve a $90 million film that people have put so much effort into it. You better believe it. When we were in the middle of the strike, I remember saying to my sister, 'I don't know if we're gonna go back to this. I don't know if we're gonna finish it.' I did get nervous."

It's no wonder that the show did so well, considering the way "The Penguin" subverts classic TV tropes and how well it manages to subvert the "spin-off centering around a villain" problem — hi, Sony's Spider-Man Universe — by deftly explaining Batman's (Robert Pattinson) absence and allowing other characters to shine. In all fairness to Farrell, he didn't pretend that the Emmy nomination was ultimately a huge surprise, either. As he told Variety, the show's reception had clued him in that something like this might be coming: 

"This is lovely. I mean, I can't say it's 100% a surprise, because of the conversations around it — I'd be disingenuous. But I'm still no less thrilled and grateful and humbled by the attention the show has got overall."

Farrell's gratitude about the show's success goes far beyond the praise his own work has received. He particularly appreciates how much people like "The Penguin" because he remembers the difficult times it was made in. He described the cast and crew's experiences and attitudes during the strike:  

"We shot three months and then we stood down for six, and then we went back to shoot for three. We were trying to shoot — we weren't writing, and all our scripts were in — but we were understandably picketed a bunch of times, and we were shut down. I remember when we had three months in the can and it was like, 'We're shutting down tomorrow. That's it. Everyone's going home.' People were f****** scared because they were living week-to-week, check-to-check, and it was a really brutal time. So this is just cherry on the cake, man."