Perhaps unsurprisingly, it turns out Josh Gad has not been secretly cast as the DC Extended Universe’s Penguin — at least not yet.
Last week, the Beauty and the Beast star sent the rumour mill spinning and DC fans into a frenzy when he cryptically tweeted out a picture of the famous Batman villain, indicating that he would be playing or was in the running for the role in 2018’s The Batman. However, despite Gad’s slight resemblance to Oswald Cobblepot and similar comedic personality, the actor recently revealed that he was “just having some fun.”
When asked by MTV’s Josh Horowitz at the MTV Movie & TV Awards if his posting of the picture had any hidden meaning, Gad coyly responded, “Just having some fun… Really. I promise. There’s no ‘there’ there. You know what? The internet just goes wild — I’m just having some fun. Just putting things out there.”
Horowitz, not fully satisfied with the answer, further pressed Gad by asking if he had ever met with The Batman director Matt Reeves. “I have not met Matt Reeves,” Gad replied. “No, no, no. Seems like a lovely guy. Love his work.”
Replying to a question about if he’d be against playing Cobblepot in a movie, Gad said, “No, never! I would absolutely be open to playing the Penguin in The Batman movie… there’s nothing more we need to talk about. It’s all — we’ll see.”
Gad clearly would be on board to play the Penguin if he were offered the role, so the ball’s in DC’s court. Given the size and scope of the DCEU, the Penguin will clearly be making an appearance at some point, and while casting of any kind for a superhero movie usually causes some backlash, Gad seems like a fairly agreeable choice.
Although the year is young, Gad has already been met with quite a bit of success in 2017. Despite some controversy, his film A Dog’s Purpose went on to make nearly $200 million worldwide and, of course, he starred as LeFou in Bill Condon and Disney’s box office monster Beauty and the Beast. Before the year is out, Gad will be popping up in Reginald Hudlin’s Thurgood Marshall biopic entitled Marshall and Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express.
Whether or not Gad’s good fortune will continue into 2018 with The Batman still remains a mystery.
Originally published May 14, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
