The Penguin TV Series Gives Mark Strong His Fourth DC Comics Character

Colin Farrell delivered the standout performance in Matt Reeves’ “The Batman,” as the Penguin: a capo who is ridiculous and kind of pathetic, but is also pretty cunning — not to mention a good student of Spanish grammar. It makes sense, then, that the first spin-off of Reeves’ universe would be “The Penguin.”

This is the second time we’ve had a Batman TV show without Batman centering on Penguin’s rise to power of Penguin, following the delightfully weird and bizarre “Gotham.” As for “The Penguin,” Colin Farrell is compelling, and it is thrilling to see his character ascend, but the show would probably have been served in a feature film format. As our review reads: “The 8-hour movie approach ultimately fails the series, but you’ll likely find yourself drawn to these extremely flawed characters and all the damage they cause along the way.” 

Though “The Penguin” mostly stars new characters not seen in “The Batman,” there is one big character we already met in the movie — Carmine Falcone. Falcone, of course, was the Gotham crime boss who informed on his rival Salvatore Maroni to the cops, kickstarting the whole plot of the movie and the Riddler’s string of murders. The character was played by John Turturro in “The Batman,” but has been recast for “The Penguin,” with Mark Strong taking over the role (in flashbacks) due to Turturro having scheduling conflicts. 

Now, Mark Strong is no stranger to DC movie adaptations, of course. This is the actor’s fourth role in a DC movie, following Septimus in “Stardust,” Thaal Sinestro in “Green Lantern,” and Thaddeus Sivana in both “Shazam!” and “Shazam! Fury of the Gods.”

Turturro now joins Nathan Fillion in having four different roles in a superhero universe, with Fillion reaching four distinct characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe thanks to “Deadpool & Wolverine.”

Granted, there are many more actors who have had multiple roles in DC Comics adaptations. This is particularly true once you count TV shows like “Smallville”: with so many episodes and roles, and chances are higher that there will be overlap with other DC casts. Tom Welling played Superman in “Smallville,” but also Cain in “Lucifer.” Mark Hamill played both Trickster in “The Flash” and the Joker in many animated projects. Brandon Routh played Superman in “Superman Returns” and Ray Palmer in the Arrowverse. Even Fillion himself has played multiple characters in DC titles: he’s voiced Vigilante in “Justice League: Unlimited,” Hal Jordan in many recent animated movies, and made the leap to live action as TDK in “The Suicide Squad.” This makes for cool little nods when an actor gets a new role tangentially related to their previous one (like Hamill playing two prankster roles in DC TV shows). 

But you should know that this in no way indicates any multiverse shenanigans, and it definitely does not indicate that Falcone is secretly a new variant of Dr. Sivana. That universe is dead and gone, and it’s a new era for the DC Universe.