According to show developer Lauren LeFranc, Batman doesn't appear on the show. "I understand why people's desire would be to have Batman, or to think that unless Batman's in a show or a film then it doesn't have the same punch. To me I think it packs a different punch. Matt's films are through the lens of Batman, so when you're high up, looking down on the city. It's a different perspective. With Oz, you're in the city streets, you're in the grit and the muck and the grime. He's looking up, wanting to claw his way to the top."
Colin Farrell fought hard to have his version of The Penguin smoke tobacco in The Batman (2022) but was unsuccessful. For his own series however, the character is depicted as an occasional tobacco user, with a preference for cigars.
It had been a dream for Cristin Milioti to play a Batman villain since she decided she wanted to be an actress.
According to show developer Lauren LeFranc the show is primarily inspired by Scarface (1983): "Matt Reeves came up with the Scarface story, a rise to power. I turned it into a psychological character study of this man. Mobsters historically are larger than life, so there is that slightly elevated quality to it, but he's just a man. A very complicated man. This is what differentiates him from previous versions of the Penguin in the comics, where he comes from a wealthy, well-known family. Matt had already made him an underdog in that he was number two to Carmine Falcone in the film, but we didn't know anything about his family. So it was important to me that he comes from nothing, and he's really aching to get more status and be seen as more important."