HBO Max just dropped a new trailer for Pennyworth: The Origin of Batman's Butler Season 3.
The trailer sees Jack Bannon's Alfred Pennyworth back in action in 1960s London alongside his trusted allies Thomas Wayne (Ben Aldridge), Martha Wayne (Emma Paetz) and Lucius Fox (Simon Manyonda). Together, they'll tackle a range of new threats -- most notably, a mind control plot and a clandestine government super-soldier program. Other characters prominently featured in the trailer include Wallace "Daveboy" McDougal (Ryan Fletcher), Bet Sykes (Paloma Faith) and Frances Gaunt (Anna Chancellor).
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The Pennyworth: The Origin of Batman's Butler Season 3 trailer arrives hot on the heels of a teaser released in August 2022 along with an official synopsis that offered several juicy pieces of plot information. According to the synopsis, Pennyworth's third season is set five years after Season 2, which means "the civil war is over, and a cultural revolution has changed the world for better or worse -- ushering in a new age of superheroes and supervillains." The Season 3 teaser also revealed Pennyworth's expanded title, a change HBO presumably requested to make the show's ties to the Batman mythos clearer to casual viewers.
Fans of both Pennyworth and the DC Comics that inspired it wasted no time in roasting the show's new subtitle, with several commentators poking fun at its unwieldy and overly expository nature. Others took issue with how the Pennyworth: The Origin of Batman's Butler moniker arguably oversells the HBO Max series' connection to the Bat-franchise, especially since its period setting makes an appearance by Bruce Wayne himself impossible. At least one fan also highlighted how similar Pennyworth Season 3's title is to a fictional Alfred spinoff movie included in Teen Titans Go! to the Movies as a nod to Hollywood's penchant for producing unnecessary prequels.
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Pennyworth's title isn't the only change being ushered in with its third season. The show is also moving platform, transitioning from MGM subsidiary Epix to HBO Max, with Pennyworth: The Origin of Batman's Butler marketed as an HBO Max Original. Seasons 1 and 2 of Pennyworth are already available to stream on HBO Max, having moved to the platform in early 2022. Fans hoping that Gotham, the series from which Pennyworth was spun off, would likewise move to HBO Max are out of luck, though, as that show remains tied to rival streaming service Netflix.
Pennyworth: The Origin of Batman's Butler arrives on HBO Max on Oct. 6, 2022 and will run for 10 episodes.
Source: HBO Max