'The Penguin' Lights Up San Diego Comic-Con With Official Trailer; Get Premiere Date
Also the Iceberg Lounge literally went ablaze but yay
Yeah I’m not done with San Diego Comic-Con, but I definitely want to finish it before D23 Expo this weekend. And boy was SDCC eventful for the newly-branded HBO Original The Penguin. Its Hall F panel unveiled the final trailer, branded its official trailer, and its premiere date of Thursday, September 19 at 9 PM, and as is the norm, will be its Max arrival time for each episode as they air too.
The trailer for Warner Bros. Television and DC Studios’s eight-episode limited series, sees the return of Colin Farrell’s Oswald Cobblepot. Farrell was attending the panel remotely, as previously reported, ultimately turning out to be from Macao, while Cristin Milioti (Sofia Falcone), Rhenzy Feliz (Victor Aguilar), executive producers Matt Reeves and Dylan Clark, and showrunner and developer, writer, and showrunning executive producer Lauren LeFranc sat on the panel in person. He describes looking for his own version of “the American dream, a beautiful story with a happy ending.” But even he knows “That ain’t the way the world works. America’s a hustle, not that I’m complaining.” A gang war is brewing, and Sofia is freshly released from Arkham.
Reeves described The Penguin in the series as stepping into “a power vacuum in Gotham” who is “totally underestimated but has this fire inside of him.” He also revealed that this Penguin’s aesthetic was modeled after Harvey Weinstein, and that the character will be back for The Batman Part II. Farrell noted that “the lore of this world held such an attraction” and saw him as someone with “violence and pain etched on [his] face.” The series will explore “this life and how broken it is, [someone embodying] this depth of ambition and greed, and the consequences of events from Oz’s childhood.” He called the character “a disaster,” but still a “tasty character” to embody. Farrell described Oswald and Sofia’s dynamic “a shared history that goes way back” with a lot in common having had to “fight” their whole lives, ultimately winding up on “opposite sides of a very real argument that will be very consequential for Gotham.”
The series also stars, in the first full disclosure of many of these roles, Michael Kelly as Johnny Viti, Shohreh Aghdashloo as Nadia Maroni, Deirdre O’Connell as Francis Cobb, Clancy Brown as Salvatore Maroni, James Madio as Milos Grapa, Scott Cohen as Luca Falcone, Michael Zegen as Alberto Falcone, Carmen Ejogo as Eve Karlo, and Theo Rossi as Dr. Julian Rush.
The trailer featured Oz revealing he wanted to “burn down an empire from the inside out”, and it seems the Friday night Iceberg Lounge activation had a sense of it, because a three-alarm fire broke out at the venue on 5th Avenue and E Street in the city’s downtown area that hosted it, forcing evacuation at roughly 7:30 PM. The alarm was sounded in the middle of the activation’s press preview, and began from a Brazilian steakhouse that was also in the building. The press and the activation’s actors were all escorted by fire and police officials.
By 8 PM local time the venue was properly ventilated, and the activation was able to reopen. The San Diego Fire-Rescue Department said “no one was hurt” and “the cause of the fire was accidental.” They also communicated that the approximate damage to the “structure, contents and neighboring building” was approximately $1.6 million. As the fully-detailed statement reads:
“San Diego Fire-Rescue Department’s Engine 80 was the first crew on the scene. They found heavy black smoke covering three building rooftops. They began investigating to find the source of the smoke. They discovered a cooking fire from the steakhouse located at 939 4th Avenue had extended to the roof. The smoke traveled into three stories of residential units. All residential units were searched and evacuated. A separate team was tasked with alerting 50 displaced AirBnB guests via wireless electronic alerting. Many visitors responded to the message to claim their belongings and receive assistance from the Red Cross.”
The Penguin is also executive produced by Craig Zobel, who directed the first three episodes, and Bill Carraro. The series premieres on HBO and Max on Thursday, September 19 at 9 PM. Watch the trailer above and the full panel below.