HBO's Star-Studded Approach to Franchise Expansion

By  Published Apr 6, 2026, 4:30 PM EDT Ben Sherlock is a Tomatometer-approved film and TV critic who runs the massively underrated YouTube channel I Got Touched at the Cinema. Before working at Screen Rant, Ben wrote for Game Rant, Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop. He's also an indie filmmaker, a standup comedian, and an alumnus of the School of Rock. Summary Generate a summary of this story follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap

HBO is renowned for assembling stacked casts for its TV shows. Not only has HBO brought screen legends like Meryl Streep to the small screen with prestige dramas like Big Little Lies; they’ve also created a few screen legends of their own. as one of the dozens of incredible actors who populated the sprawling ensemble of The Wire.

, with Italian-American character actors, up-and-coming prodigies, and full-blown movie stars. Game of Thrones filled out the world of Westeros with vulnerable, three-dimensional human beings played by some of the greatest actors on the planet. Curb Your Enthusiasm assembled a murderers’ row of improvisers, then threw in J.B. Smoove as the missing ingredient in season 6.

In just the past couple of years, HBO has paired up the comedy dream team of Peter Claffey and Dexter Sol Ansell as Dunk and Egg, about sexual exploits in Thailand, and put Bradley Cooper in a Civil War-era Righteous Gemstones prequel episode. may have inherited its star from a previous project, but it has one of .

The Penguin Was A Pleasant Surprise

Oz Cobb dances with Eve Karlo as his mother Francis in The Penguin episode 8

Hollywood’s film and TV output has become an endless slew of streaming content spun off from familiar franchises. Not even HBO is immune to it; they’re on their third Game of Thrones spinoff, they’ve turned a bunch of their hit limited series into series series, and they’re planning to spend the next decade remaking every single Harry Potter movie as a season of television.

But there’s been a pleasant pattern in recent years with some of these recycled franchise spinoffs “no one asked for” turning into some of . No one asked for a Star Wars show about Cassian Andor, but visionary creator Tony Gilroy turned it into the definitive cinematic statement on the cost of revolution.

When , was announced to be getting his own spinoff series, it seemed like another show “no one asked for.” But whether it turned out to be an unexpected gem like Peacemaker or a disaster like The Book of Boba Fett depended entirely on the creator that HBO put at the helm. Fortunately, they found the perfect showrunner in Lauren LeFranc.

Like Gilroy, LeFranc is much more interested in telling a good story with timely themes than expanding a fictional universe and playing with the studio’s action figures. When she signed on to write The Penguin, she was more excited by the idea of a Scarface-style criminal character study than the opportunity to pad out Matt Reeves’ Gotham with C-list Batman villains.

The Penguin looks at three key characters in Gotham’s criminal underworld: jaded gangster Oz, recently released mental patient Sofia, and aimless orphan Victor. It tells us how they became the way they are, whether they’re beyond redemption, and what they’ll have to do to get there. Their tragic backstories and grim fates tell a complete, rounded story of three deeply flawed individuals impacting each other’s lives.

The Penguin Is Carried By A Stacked Ensemble Cast

Sofia stands over a family dinner in The Penguin episode 4

Colin Farrell stole the spotlight every time he showed up in The Batman, but he only popped up in a small handful of scenes in that movie, usually as the dark comic relief. In The Penguin, he expands that character into every bit the complex, three-dimensional figure that Tony Soprano is.

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And Farrell is just one of the incredible actors in this show. ; Rhenzy Feliz is the moral center of The Penguin as Vic; Mark Strong ably replaces John Turturro as Carmine Falcone; and Clancy Brown plays yet another DC role (after all his voiceovers in the DC Animated Universe) as his gangland rival, Sal Maroni.

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