Fans of The Penguin have spent the past few months wondering if a second season of the show is happening and it appears that Warner Bros. has given its most definitive confirmation that is isn't.
The DC TV show was one of the biggest success stories of 2024. The Colin Farrell-led series is a spinoff of Matt Reeves' The Batman, designed to bridge the gap between the 2022 film and its upcoming sequel, but it quickly became a formidable entity of its own. The show earned critical acclaim while also proving itself to be a strong performer for HBO and the Max streaming service, which led to the understandable questions about whether the show - once considered a miniseries - could evolve into a more linear TV series with multiple seasons.
Despite some initially promising responses from the cast and crew about the show's future, it appears that The Penguin season 2 won't happen after all. Now, fans are convinced that Warner Bros. has confirmed the show's fate.
The Penguin's Limited Series Emmy submissions suggest season 2 won't happen
The Penguin has been submitted for multiple categories at the 2025 Primetime Emmy Awards, but all of them have one thing in common: They are all Limited Series categories. Deadline reports that the HBO series has put forward Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti for Best Actor and Best Actress In A Limited Series (for their respective performances as Oswald "Oz" Cobb and Sofia Falcone), as well as Rhenzy Feliz and Deirdre O'Connell for Best Supporting Actor and Actress (for their performances as Vic and Francis). Showrunner Lauren LeFranc has been submitted for Best Writing, while the show itself has been put forward for Outstanding Limited Series.
These are not official nominations as of yet, but given the show's track record with awards ceremonies thus far, Farrell and Milioti are destined for nominations alongside the show itself (with all three being realistic winners). Farrell in particular has cleaned up at awards ceremonies thus far, winning a Golden Globe, Critics' Choice, and Saturn Award (with Milioti winning the latter two, as well).
It's worth pointing out that this isn't the first time that The Penguin has been submitted in the Limited Series category at an awards ceremony either, but this one is significant for a number of reasons. This is the Emmys - the awards show with the most visibility out of all those which honor television. They also take place at the end of the awards cycle, meaning that The Penguin will indeed bow out of awards season remaining a limited series in spite of earlier reports and rumors that WB might budge and make a second season due to the positive response.
But the further that we have moved away from The Penguin's release, the less likely that second season has become. There were some positive reports in the beginning, claiming that Warner Bros. and HBO may look into another season due to its success, but the conversation has changed since then.
A recent update from Chairman and CEO of the Warner Bros. Television Group, Channing Dungey, confirmed as much when she told Deadline last month that the show was "very much designed as a limited series" and that "there's nothing in the works at the moment". It was a shift for sure, but one that went back to the original school of thought (about the show being envisioned as a one-and-done). Does that completely rule out a second season from ever happening? No. As Dungey says, "it's definitely a possibility" in the future if they could get all the "creative stars to line up", but it's clear that - for now at least - The Penguin is a limited series. The Emmy submissions are just the most recent example of that line of thinking.
The good news is that, season 2 or not, Colin Farrell will be back as Oz Cobb himself, as the character is set to return in The Batman - Part II when it arrives in theaters at Halloween 2027. He may not get his own sequel but at least he'll be a part of The Dark Knight's.