After much anticipation, The Penguin came to Max and mostly received rave reviews. Its director, Craig Zobel, who helmed the first three episodes, reflects on his work. 

He told Collider why he opted for the project, "Initially, I saw Matt Reeves' film on opening day, and I was excited about it. I thought it was very clever."

He continued, "Later, when the show was up and running, and Lauren [LeFranc] had been brought in, and there were scripts and things, they approached me. Dylan Clark reached out, and I was like, "Yeah, I already love this. This is great, and the world is cool. That's how I came to be a part of it."

Colin Farrell, who plays Oz Cobb, has a starkly different take on Gotham City, unlike Bruce Wayne's POV in the series. Explaining this, Craig said, The film has a lot of warm light in it, and that was definitely a thing that we noticed and talked about. Again, that was at least in the front side of the show, when you're still used to what the film was."

"I felt like it was important to be in that stuff. Also, it's just nice to have a contained palette, and have rules, for no other reason than that helps you just have fun by playing inside of the sandbox," he concluded.