Before Colin Farrell became the Penguin in Matt Reeves’ The Batman , the character almost had a different origin story in the DC Universe. According to star and producer Margot Robbie, early versions of the script for her Harley Quinn vehicle Birds of Prey, featured the iconic Batman villain as the main antagonist, but then someone stepped in and asked that not to happen.

“Matt Reeves said, ‘Don’t use the Penguin. I’m going to use him in my thing,'” Robbie explained to Farrell in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “And so we swapped it to Black Mask.”

Reeves, of course, is the writer and director of The Batman , which was released two years after Birds of Prey . His film features Penguin in a rather important role, one that has since gotten even more important than

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