With The Batman due in barely two months, Warner Bros. treated fans to a selection of new images – featuring new, character-portrait style photographs of Paul Dano’s Riddler and Colin Farrell’s Penguin.
To start with, Danos’ Riddler look is a straight-up homage to the terrifying, real-life ‘Zodiac Killer’ – an infamous serial killer who terrorized California back in the late 1960s.
Taking a sharp turn from the traditional cane-flourishing, green-suit look we know from the comics, Dano looks coarse, unsettling, and much less ‘human’. Top it off with the old-school military jacket, the rough question mark logo, and the leathered-up mouth – straight up serial killer, no doubt about it.
This makes for a perfect fit with the dark, gritty tone director Matt Reeves is aiming for.
The Penguin, on the other hand, takes a much more straightforward approach:
Snide, corpulent, and penguin-like from most angles, Farrell’s efforts have resulted in a classic, purple-clad version of the character that doesn’t stray too far from the comics. While he still looks very much human, the Penguin’s face does have extensive scarring – forming the loose shape of a penguin’s snapping beak.
Farrell recently confirmed in an IGN interview that he will be wearing a fat suit this time around – after a few health scares during his natural weight-gain for The North Water, The Batman will rely on the prosthetics/makeup talents of Mike Marino.
“Mike Marino is a genius. He’s an absolute and veritable genius,” shared Farrell. “And that word gets thrown out a lot, but he is a drawing, sculpting, shaping genius, and he created this visage for the Penguin.”
What Do Fans Think?
For the most part, fans are a bit tired of the campy, comic-accurate suits that we’ve seen in the Riddler’s previous iterations.
While several fans were excited, others were massively disappointed – taking offense at how distant Reeves’ vision is from traditional comic and animated universe Riddler designs.
The Penguin drew praise from all around – with several Farrell fans hoping to see a great performance, and taken aback by the extensive prosthetics work going on behind the scenes.
Others took the look previews as a chance to point out that Reeves might be taking the Batman property a bit too seriously:
The Batman is scheduled to release on the 4th of March, 2022.
(Image Sources: Warner Bros. Entertainment)
