Best of 2024: How “The Penguin” Production Designer Kalina Ivanov Helped Bring Gotham Back to New York City
*This interview was selected by measures having nothing to do with science as one of our standouts from 2024. The creation of Gotham for HBO’s shockingly good series The Penguin fell, in large part, to ace production designer Kalina Ivanov. Here’s how she pulled it off.
Production designer Kalina Ivanov was destined to be part of the HBO spin-off series The Penguin from creator Lauren LeFranc,
“The Penguin” Hair Department Head Brian Badie on Styling Gotham’s Gruesome Twosome
Spoiler warning…
The Penguin capped its remarkable eight-part run this past Sunday night and accomplished a rare feat—it’s a series set in a comic book world, boasting characters well known to the genre’s most read-in fans, that delivered a profoundly satisfying drama for a person unfamiliar with DC Comics or unenthused by Gotham’s most iconic resident, Bruce Wayne. The Penguin doesn’t even whisper Batman’s name nor allude to his presence until the very last shot in the series (a bat-signal,
“The Penguin” Costume Designer Helen Huang on Gotham’s Gritty Glamour
Costume designer Helen Huang bridges reality and comic book storytelling in The Penguin, finding a brilliant balance that gives the series weight and a churlish glamour befitting a story set in Gotham’s criminal underworld. The hit series led by showrunner Lauren LeFranc is familiar—Gotham is our most explored comic version of New York City—yet heightened and deliciously detailed, blending a tactical mob story with the haunting metropolis in a period of rapid decay following the Riddler’s bombing and flooding of the city at the end of The Batman—The Penguin is set in that tragedy’s aftermath.
“The Penguin” Episode 4 Introduced a Classic Batman Villain
In the first three episodes of HBO’s devilishly entertaining The Penguin, Colin Farrell’s Oz Cobb has made daring, painful inroads with Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti), the daughter of the late Gotham underworld poobah Carmine Falcone (Mark Strong). As the series kicked off in the wake of the Riddler’s attack on Gotham in Matt Reeves’ feature The Batman, Sofia was freshly sprung from Arkham Asylum, where she spent a decade after being accused of the murder of seven women working at her father’s Iceberg Lounge,
Inside the Shaky Alliance Between Oz and Sofia in “The Penguin” Episode 3
Gotham has never looked quite so seedy and dangerous as it does in HBO’s excellent The Batman spinoff series The Penguin. Shot in and around New York City (unlike previous films in the Batman universe, which have utilized international locations and cities that are not New York to recreate Gotham), The Penguin picks up in the aftermath of the Riddler’s bombing of the city at the end of The Batman,
How “The Penguin” Production Designer Kalina Ivanov Helped Bring Gotham Back to New York City
Production designer Kalina Ivanov was destined to be part of the HBO spin-off series The Penguin from creator Lauren LeFranc, which stars Colin Farrell as the title character, Oz Cobb, reprising his role from Matt Reeves’ The Batman and remaining, once again, utterly unrecognizable.
“The very first movie I saw in the theater after Covid stopped being Covid was The Batman,
A New “The Penguin” Teaser Reveals Gotham’s Mean Streets
In a moody new teaser for HBO Max’s The Penguin, we’re taken back to the gritty, grimy streets of Gotham as envisioned by Matt Reeves in his excellent 2022 film The Batman, which introduced Robert Pattinson as the new Caped Crusader and which included a standout performance from Colin Farrell as Oswald Cobblepot, the rotund gangster better known as the Penguin.
The teaser makes it clear that The Penguin exists in a dark,
“The Penguin” Trailer Reveals Colin Farrell’s Crime Lord Scheming for Control of Gotham
“Can you imagine? To be remembered like that?”
These are the musings of Oswald Cobblepot (Colin Farrell), also known by his unbeatable gangster nickname, The Penguin, in the official trailer for the upcoming Max series of the same name. Oswald is talking about a gangster he knew when he was growing up, a guy so respected, even beloved, that they threw a parade in his honor when he died. It’s safe to say the kind of life Oswald has led likely won’t lead to any parades when he waddles his last,
“The Penguin” First Look Reveals HBO Max’s “The Batman” Spinoff
“This — this is one of those moments where you gotta ask yourself, what kind of life do I want? The world ain’t built for guys like us; that’s why we gotta take whatever we decide is ours.”
Welcome to the world view of Oswald Cobblepot (Colin Farrell), also known by his unbeatable gangster nickname The Penguin. Farrell’s portrayal of the rotund demigod of the Gotham underworld was one of the many wonderful surprises nested in writer/director Matt Reeves’s excellent The Batman,
“The Penguin” HBO Series Adds Scott Cohen, James Madio, & Michael Zegen
The Penguin series just added three new stars to the cast in the upcoming spinoff series starring Colin Farrell as the portly patriarch of the Gotham underworld. Variety reports that Scott Cohen, James Madio, and Michael Zegen will all be in appearing in the series, which will center on Farrell’s Oswald Cobblepot and takes place after the events in The Batman. It’s slated for an 8-episode run,
“The Penguin” Casts Cristin Milioti as Sofia Falcone
The versatile, talented Cristin Milioti is heading to Gotham.
Variety reports that Milioti is joining Colin Farrell in HBO Max’s The Penguin as Sofia Falcone, the daughter of Gotham mob boss Carmine Falcone. The Penguin will pick up after The Batman ended, which means that Milioti’s Sofia will be living in a Gotham that no longer has to bow down to her father—played by John Turturro in writer/director Matt Reeves’
Colin Farrell Says “The Penguin” Will Begin A Week After “The Batman” Ending
While Colin Farrell is on a publicity tour for the critically acclaimed The Banshees of Inisherin, which finds him re-teaming with his In Bruges director Martin McDonagh and co-star Brendan Gleeson, he’s offered up some delicious details about HBO Max’s The Penguin. The upcoming series will find Farrell reprising his role from Matt Reeves’ The Batman and is set to start filming in early 2023.
Colin Farrell’s “The Penguin” HBO Max Series Reveals Fresh Details
Colin Farrell made the absolute most of his turn as Oswald Cobblepot, better known as the Penguin, in Matt Reeves’s thrilling The Batman. Reeves’s reboot, which starred Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne and dropped in on him in year two of his vigilante work as Batman, featured a Rogue’s Gallery that included Paul Dano’s headlining villain, Edward Nashton/the Riddler and Zoë Kravitz’s Selina Kyle/Catwoman. While Farrell had a bit less to do in this film,
