Did The Batman's first trailer reveal Colin Farrell's villain The Penguin? The unexpected first look at Matt Reeves' Dark Knight reboot debuted at DC's excellent FanDome event with the director conducting a one-man panel to offer more information on the project. The trailer, which was made despite only 25-30% of the film even being shot prior to the pandemic canceling filming, is a bold, exciting glimpse at Reeves' transformative, noir-soaked vision for his Batman.
As already revealed, The Batman packs in the villains with Paul Dano's iteration of The Riddler seemingly topping the billing and John Turturro's Carmine Falcone, Zoe Kravitz's Selina Kyle/Catwoman and a host of powerful but corrupt Gothamites alongside him. Arguably most interesting of all on the back of the trailer is Colin Farrell's Penguin, who has been described as a sort of kingpin presiding over Gotham. That fits with the idea of the iconic Batman villain as a fearsome gangster pulling strings (not unlike Marvel's own Kingpin), but The Batman's trailer seems to suggest a different direction entirely for him. And yes, you might already have seen him.
In the wake of the trailer's release, social media was set ablaze with discussion on whether one character in particular - a plump-faced, balding man bearing a distinct resemblance to Richard Kind - was actually Colin Farrell in heavy prosthetics. He certainly has the usual pronounced features associated with The Penguin (and which would work alongside Matt Reeves' suggestion that "Penguin" is an insulting nickname he hates), but if it's Farrell under that make-up, he's unrecognizable. Which is what makes the whole thing so clever.
So is it him? Internet sleuths have now had hours to pour over the very dark shots of the mysterious character in the trailer, but the debate rages on. Set leaks that seemed to show Colin Farrell as The Penguin with white/blonde hair (assumed despite the quality of the image because he was holding an umbrella at the time) throw a spanner in the works, but set misdirection isn't exactly a new thing. There's also no confirmation that the set photos were even of Farrell. More pressing are the images from The Batman's FanDome trailer, which are unrecognizable, but which do have some of Farrell's features. In close-up, the character's eyes look the same shape and have the same hooded eyelids as Farrell and both jawlines are the same shape (albeit with added prosthetics on The Penguin).
Some naysaying is bound to be inspired by how different the brief trailer footage seems to make The Penguin look in terms of his personality. After all, he appears to be uncharacteristically cowardly, fleeing Batman (or whoever he calls "crazy" in the trailer), but context is everything. If Oz is indeed a kingpin at the highest seat in a Gotham that is rotten to the core with corruption, he's always been safe and unchallenged to rule his criminal empire. It will only be Batman's rise that will turn him into what he later becomes.