Craig Zobel on How ‘The Penguin’ Elevates ‘The Batman’s PG-13 Rating: “Yeah, the truth was that it didn’t limit us.”
Many fans were dubious when Colin Farrell was chosen to play Oz Cobb, also known as The Penguin, in Matt Reeves’ The Batman since they weren’t sure what to anticipate from the portrayal.
However, the Irish Oscar nominee did such a fantastic job that HBO ordered a stand-alone series about The Penguin right away, with Farrell returning to the role. The show has been declared a masterpiece and that is why we are reporting on it right now.
In light of exploring the series’ lore and explaining more about the show, we have found an interesting interview with The Penguin director Craig Zobel, which he gave to ScreenRant. In it, he answered several interesting questions about the show and its evolution, and in this article, we are going to report on these answers.
The interview was part of the promotion for the series premiere, and Zobel revealed some interesting details about the show. One of the questions asked was related to how the series reacted to The Batman being PG-13 and how the series planned on elevating that rating, and here is what Zobel said:
I wanted to talk about how The Batman’s PG-13, but the series is definitely a hard TV-MA. What kind of freedom did you have from your perspective as a director, by not having to be so restricted?
Craig Zobel: Yeah, the truth was that it didn’t limit us. There was no pause to try to peel back and make the PG-13 version, like ‘This would be a really great move. Can we do it?’ There wasn’t really that debate.
I wouldn’t say that we were trying to make it incredibly R-rated in any particular way or going hard other than that was just sort of like, this is was the way that we were able to have the kind of most impactful beats and moments. And, yeah, it was freeing in that way.
Are there any hidden details in those first few episodes that you’re, like, really, just really proud of, some cool elements that you want viewers to look out for?
Craig Zobel: I think that there are hidden things and certainly if you think about The Penguin and what you know of that character, not Colin Farrell’s Oz, but The Penguin as a character, there are all these iconographic elements . The initial thought was like, don’t do any of those. Don’t do anything. That is like the old stories. We’re making something new.
But, you kind of have to look at yourself and be like, well, he probably would use an umbrella if it’s raining this bad. That became sort of a bit of a game to kind of how do we very subtly over the course of the series, and we talked about it for, like, you know, maybe by episode seven, this could happen, and by episode eight, this could happen, where we started bringing some of those kind of the icons of what it means to be The Penguin inside this universe.
Source: ScreenRant
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