The Penguin

If I was ever given the power to write an original movie screenplay using any comic book characters I wanted, I would write one about the Penguin. I know, you’re wondering, “of all the characters in all of comic-bookdom, you choose the Penguin?” Of course.

The main reason is simple: nobody’s thought of doing it before. And the reason nobody’s thought of doing it before is simple: I’m smarter than everybody else. But the reason you are probably skeptical of a movie about the Penguin is because you don’t understand how a movie about the Penguin is about as realistic a movie as you can make.

First of all, let’s look at who the Penguin is: a psychopath who is little more than Bruce Wayne if Bruce Wayne didn’t have a morality. The parallels in the characters of the Batman and the Penguin are so similar I can’t help but wonder if they have hidden something in plain site for years. And since the Penguin is a psychopath, it’s really not difficult to make a convincing character just from what a psychopath is.

It should be understood that just because one is a psychopath that it doesn’t mean that you wear immaculate suits, have sex with everybody you meet, and kill people to get ahead in business. That could happen, but unless you’re a comic book character (or work for Goldman Sachs) I don’t think there’s much to fear from most people.

But the Penguin does kill people. And he does wear some pretty expensive spats. And he fancies himself a lady’s man. Sound like a psychopath? Of course. Now all we need is…reality.

In my realization of the Penguin, you don’t need a Batman. You don’t need a Gotham City. Honestly, you don’t even need a guy with webbed hands and feet abandoned by his rich parents. All you need is, well, a psychopath. A psychopath who read far too many comic books growing up.

Imagine a normal city–like Austin, Texas or Kansas City, Missouri. Then imagine the entire police force on high alert because of terrorist activities. Then reveal that the city is being controlled by the criminal network set up by a cunning, ruthless mastermind: the Penguin.

Then cut to real cops talking about a blank-blanking criminal blank-blank-blanking calling himself the blanking Penguin? Blank me! This is blank. And the Penguin won’t leave the city alone until they produce the Batman.

Yeah…the Batman. The thing that doesn’t exist. Because, you know, he’s a comic book character. And so is the Penguin, yet there’s some dude in a recorded video wearing a suit and has a monocle and spats and keeps laughing with this creepy waah-waaah-waaaaaaah sort of laugh.

That’s the premise. I think the fun would be the people working to make the insanity of the situation line up with the reality that a guy can call himself the Penguin and honestly really be the Penguin.