The Penguin's Lauren LeFranc in Talks for a Poison Ivy Series
Lauren LeFranc, the showrunner of HBO's The Penguin, is in talks to join a new television series centred on the DC Comics villain Poison Ivy, Deadline reported on 21 October 2026. A showrunner is the writer and producer who runs a series day to day. Talks are not a deal, and nothing has been signed.
According to sources speaking to Deadline, LeFranc would join as a producer. She would not write the show. No writers have been attached so far, and no actor has been cast in the lead role.
The project is being developed by Warner Bros. and DC Comics. If it is picked up, it would go to HBO, the same network that broadcasts The Penguin. Deadline said it had been tracking the Poison Ivy project for many months.
Work on the series was put on pause because of the merger between Paramount and Warner Bros., Deadline reported. Mergers can reshape which projects a studio keeps, so a shelved idea can take months to come back. This one has now resurfaced with a producer attached.
Poison Ivy was created by the comic book artists Carmine Infantino and Robert Kanigher. In the comics she is Dr. Pamela Isley, a botanist who uses plants and poisons as weapons and has a fierce attachment to nature. She has already been on screen several times. Lake Bell voiced her in the adult animated series Harley Quinn on HBO Max. Bridget Regan played her in The CW's Batwoman, and Peyton List played her in Fox's Gotham.
According to sources, the new series would not be part of Matt Reeves' Batman universe, the film world that stars Robert Pattinson as Batman. That keeps it separate from the films.
LeFranc's own track record runs through several Marvel and network shows. She has produced and written episodes of Impulse, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Chuck and My Own Worst Enemy. She is best known to many viewers as a writer on The Penguin, the HBO series that followed Colin Farrell's Oswald Cobblepot, better known as the Penguin, in Gotham City.
For now, the next step is a decision on whether LeFranc signs on, and whether the project moves forward at all.
