Entertainment
The Actor We're So Glad Turned Down The Penguin Before Colin Farrell
By Becca Lewis
| Published
While we love to see Jonah Hill playing an idiot billionaire in Don’t Look Up, is he really who we would want to see as The Penguin? Luckily, we don’t have to find out, because Colin Farrell picked up that flag and ran with it to deliver a satisfyingly spineless performance in the DC Entertainment miniseries. The Penguin is a slimy, seedy addition to the Batman franchise, and although Jonah Hill is great at lots of things, Colin Farrell really shines as the ruthless wannabe mobster, Oz Cob.
Jonah Hill Was Nearly The Penguin
It’s not clear why Jonah Hill would pass on playing the iconic role of the Penguin in The Batman, but it could have been because he seemed more interested in playing the character of the Riddler. While the loss of Hill on the project was reported as a major setback for the DC comic adaptation from Matt Reeves, it might have been for the best that Colin Farrell got the job, because he is still killing it in the role. As for Jonah Hill’s choice of roles, it’s likely that the final sticking point in negotiations with the studio wasn’t about The Riddler vs. the Penguin, but rather about money.
If the salary requirements for Jonah Hill to play the Penguin were to blame for his not getting the part, he could be regretting that choice now, as The Penguin, a sequel miniseries to The Batman is currently a smash hit. The Penguin has won a 94 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes and had 5.3 million views on HBO across its streaming platform within the first four days of its release. Jonah Hill might be kicking himself for not boarding that train at the first stop, even though fans of the series are smitten with Colin Farrell in the role.
The Penguin Miniseries
The Batman role that Jonah Hill turned down sparked the spinoff miniseries The Penguin, giving the comic book villain a backstory, and a chance to construct the character’s past. Oz Cobb, the wannabe gangster that becomes The Penguin, struggles to gain favor with his family, to survive the tumultuous violence of the crime family he works for, and to climb the gang’s ladder. He’s manipulative, smart, and scheming, and will stop at nothing to get what he wants, which is of course, to please his mother.
Colin Farrell Shines As Oz Cobb
Although Jonah Hill is a great villain, the comic book villain status of the Penguin is a whole other level of evil that he just might not be able to achieve. Colin Farrell transforms himself for the role into a sociopathic, remorseless, underdog, who lurks within the circle of the Falcone family, constructing an escape from his job as a driver, and weaving a revenge-fueled rise to power. Perhaps for Jonah Hill, the Riddler, rather than the Penguin would have been a better choice.
Whatever the reason was that Jonah Hill ultimately passed on the role of the Penguin in the 2022 film The Batman, audiences are thrilled with Colin Farrell in the role. The subsequent miniseries featuring the Penguin as the main character is a testament to the love fans have for the casting choice. Hopefully, Hill isn’t too regretful of his decision to pass, because he gave fans the Penguin character we always wanted.
Entertainment
Xiaomi 17 Ultra hands-on: The cameraphone with a monstrous zoom
Xiaomi’s Ultra line of phones has always been about one thing: Peak camera performance. The new Xiaomi 17 Ultra, launched ahead of MWC 2026 in Barcelona, pushes the boundaries once more, though it suffers from similar setbacks as its predecessors.
Note that there was no Xiaomi 16 Ultra; the company decided to skip that number and go straight from the Xiaomi 15 and 15 Ultra to Xiaomi 17 and 17 Ultra, likely to “catch up” with Apple, whose latest models also bear the number seventeen. Despite the change, the new Xiaomi phones are very much an evolution of last year’s flagship models.
On the phone side of things, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra is an extremely capable Android smartphone, with a 6.9-inch, 120Hz OLED display, a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, 16GB of RAM, 512/1024GB of storage, and a 6,000mAh battery with 90W fast charging and 50W wireless charging. It comes in three colors: Black, White, and the sparkly Starlit Green (Xiaomi sent me a black unit, but the Starlit Green looks way cooler).
The 6.9-inch OLED display is excellent.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
Where the Xiaomi 17 Ultra differs from the regular Xiaomi 17, which also debuted here in Barcelona, is mainly in screen size (6.9 vs. 6.3 inches), and the camera. The Ultra’s got a massive, Leica-branded camera array on the back, with a 50-megapixel main camera, a 200-megapixel telephoto camera, and a 50-megapixel ultra-wide camera, coupled with a 50-megapixel selfie camera on the front.
At 8.29mm thickness and 218 grams of weight, it’s the thinnest and lightest Xiaomi Ultra phone ever.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
The 200-megapixel, 75-100mm telephoto camera gives this phone otherworldly zoom capabilities, with up to 17.2x of “optical-level zoom.” I’ve tried it out, and was able to take usable photos at 100x zoom or more, far beyond in the distance than what my naked I could see.
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Left:
This is what the XIaomi 17 Ultra’s telephoto camera can do.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
Right:
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
Venture that far out, and AI takes the reins quite heavy handedly, which you’ll see in the way the system recreates the letters of a sign you took in the distance. Still, if you like the idea of having a camera that can take sharp photos of a flower that’s a hundred yards away, this is the phone to do it with.
Left:
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
Right:
The zoom on this phone is so good, it’s worth providing another example. It’s like having a set of binoculars.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
To add an exclamation point to the phone’s camera capabilities, Xiaomi also sells two optional photography kits which consists of two different cases that turn the phone into something that really looks like a compact camera, and add a few buttons, visual details, and battery life to the mix. The smaller Xiaomi 17 Ultra Photography Kit makes more sense to me as the phone still retains somewhat normal dimensions; the two-part Xiaomi 17 Ultra Photography Kit Pro makes it a bit too big for my taste.
The photography kits look cool, but they make the phone a lot bulkier.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
The kits, as cool as they may be, illustrate the most obvious drawback of this phone: it’s too much of a camera. It’s top heavy, has a smaller battery than the regular Xiaomi 17, and – due to its massive camera bump on the back – doesn’t support Xiaomi’s wireless, magnetic battery. Don’t get me wrong, this is one powerful phone, but it’s primarily aimed at photography enthusiasts. Kudos to Xiaomi for making the Ultra lighter than ever, though at 218 grams it’s still not exactly lightweight.
If you want your Xiaomi 17 Ultra to be a little more…Leica, there’s a special version just for you, shown as a surprise announcement during Xiaomi’s big unveiling in Barcelona. Called the Leica Leitzphone, it shares most of the specs with the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, but has a somewhat retro design which calls to mind classic Leica cameras, and a couple of Leica-specific photography modes.
This one is for the Leica fans.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
It also has one extra feature: The ring surrounding its camera bump can be rotated to increase or decrease zoom. I’ve tried it out, and it appears to be quite precise, though you do have to be careful not to place your fingers in front of the lens while shooting.
The Xiaomi 17 Ultra starts at 1,499 euros in Europe; there’s no info on U.S. availability yet. The Leica Leitzphone is starting at a hefty price of 1,999 euros, and it will be available in select markets and locations.
Topics
Mobile World Congress
Xiaomi
Entertainment
Xiaomis new hyper car concept has the strangest cockpit weve ever seen
Xiaomi likes to bring cars to Barcelona; the company gave us the first glimpse of its SU7 Ultra supercar during last year’s MWC in March.
This year, however, Xiaomi has unveiled something that’s pretty far out there, even by its own standards. Called the Xiaomi Vision Gran Turismo, it’s a hypercar that was designed to go really fast while slicing through the air in a way not many cars (or race cars, for that matter) can (Xiaomi says it’s been “sculpted by the wind”).
It feels kinda empty in there.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
The company will bring the concept car to its MWC show floor in Barcelona on March 2, presumably when we’ll learn more about its powertrain, acceleration, battery, and other trivialities. Today, however, Xiaomi was mostly focused on how the air flows through the car, using a variety of wind tunnels and channels (and even a moving part on the car’s bottom) to make it more efficient.
The wheels and wheel covers are special, too.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
Even the car’s wheels have special covers that are (somehow) magnetically set in place so they don’t rotate while the car moves, as that would also increase drag.
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I bet your car doesn’t have a cocoon-shaped sofa.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
Inside, it gets even nuttier. The seats are out; instead, you sit in a “cocoon-shaped sofa” with an x-wing steering wheel with five tiny displays, some of which apparently double as (contextual?) buttons. Most of the things you associate with a traditional car are gone; instead, it’s you in that sofa-shaped cockpit, that steering wheel, and the road. The car’s a two-seater, so don’t expect to bring your family on a trip in this one.
Fortunately, you might be able to get a cocoon-shaped sofa/cockpit for your home.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
In fact, most people probably won’t be able to afford a car like this, but Xiaomi’s got you covered, as it plans to release a gaming console/cockpit shaped just like the car’s cockpit, so you can race around in your own little cocoon in the relative safety of your home.
We don’t know how fast it goes. We don’t know where the batteries are, given that the car appears to be mostly wind tunnels under that cockpit. We don’t know if it’s ever going to make it to market. But boy, does it all look cool.
We’ll hopefully find out more on March 2 when that show floor opens, so stay tuned for pics and videos.
Topics
Mobile World Congress
Xiaomi
Entertainment
NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for March 1, 2026
The NYT Connections puzzle today is not too difficult to solve if you’re a frequent flyer.
Connections is the one of the most popular New York Times word games that’s captured the public’s attention. The game is all about finding the “common threads between words.” And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we’ve served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.
If you just want to be told today’s puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for today’s Connections solution. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
What is Connections?
The NYT‘s latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications’ Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.
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Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there’s only one correct answer.
If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.
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Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.
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Here’s a hint for today’s Connections categories
Want a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:
Here are today’s Connections categories
Need a little extra help? Today’s connections fall into the following categories:
Looking for Wordle today? Here’s the answer to today’s Wordle.
Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today’s puzzle before we reveal the solutions.
Drumroll, please!
The solution to today’s Connections #994 is…
What is the answer to Connections today
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Little bite: CANAPÉ, FINGER FOOD, HORS D’OEUVRE, TAPA
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Construction equipment: HARD HAT, LADDER, NAIL GUN, TOOL BELT
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Vacation emoji: AIRPLANE, LUGGAGE, PALM TREE, SMILING FACE WITH SUNGLASSES
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Things you don’t eat that end in foods: COPYPASTA, JOHANNESBURGER, KNUCKLE SANDWICH, LICORICE PIZZA
Don’t feel down if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we’ll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.
Are you also playing NYT Strands? Get all the Strands hints you need for today’s puzzle.
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you’re after? Here’s the solution to yesterday’s Connections.
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