The Writers Guild of America is trying to prove that the power of the pen is mightier than the power of the Pen…guin, after the WGA East successfully shut down production on the Max series The Penguin.

The show, which stars Colin Farrell as The Penguin, was scheduled to film in Westchester, New York on Tuesday but picketing writers from the WGA East arrived at the location before producers and got the support of Teamsters and local guilds, who refused to cross the picket line and got production on the Batman spinoff series shut down for the day.

The significance of shutting down an infamous super-villain was not lost on writers in the Twitter-verse, who took to social media with their clever writerly wit to comment on the event. One picketer noted “The Batman: trying to shut The Penguin down since 1941. The @WGAEast: manages it in one day #WGAstrong #UnionStrong.”

A WGA strike captain posted along a similar wavelength: “Breaking news: we have Spoken Truth to Penguin. The #WGADawnPatrol has shut Penguin down for the day. No more folks needed in Sleepy Hollow. #WGAStrong.”

Max's The Penguin series, executive produced by Matt Reeves, picks up where Reeves' The Batman film left off. Other executive producers on the series include Dylan Clark, Colin Farrell, and Lauren LeFranc, who writes and acts as showrunner, Craig Zobel, the director of the first three episodes, and Bill Carraro. Besides Farrell, the show also stars Rhenzy Feliz, Michael Kelly, Shohreh Aghdashloo and Deirdre O’Connell.

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Josh Silverstein ·

The Penguin is the latest high-profile series to have production shut down by the WGA writers strike, which is now in its third week. It remains to be seen whether these tactics will bring the AMPTP, which negotiates on behalf of the major studios, back to the negotiating table soon.

Note: Josh Silverstein is a member of the WGA West.