Matt Reeves’ The Batman – Part II is delayed once again. While DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn attempts to allay fears, fans aren’t buying the excuses anymore and believe there’s something more to this story.
The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson as the Caped Crusader, arrived in theaters in early 2022. Despite the toil and turmoil that plagued DC films at the time, this was the welcome outlier. The hardboiled detective comic book movie received a positive reaction from both fans and critics, and it cooked at the box office, making over $770 million from a $200 million budget. Unsurprisingly, the sequel received the , and the Reevesverse expanded with The Penguin television show.
The road to The Batman – Part II might have been paved with good intentions, but it turned into a hellish night out in Gotham City. For a long stretch of time, production news went quiet as the official message was that Reeves and Mattson Tomlin were grinding away on the script. Then came the confirmation that the film was pushed back an entire year from an October 2025 release date to October 2026. Now, the latest information suggests the script isn’t ready, even though production is meant to kick off in April 2025.
Considering DC and Warner Bros.’ chaotic history, the murmurs doing the rounds is that the film has been quietly cancelled, but no one wants to say anything until the kinda-rebooted DC Universe launches with next year’s Superman. Expectedly, this type of conspiracy theory picks up traction on social media, and it doesn’t take long until a rumor turns into a fact among fans who still believe everything they read online.
A user sent several messages about The Batman – Part 2‘s speculated cancellation to Gunn on Threads and asked him if there was any truth to the matter. Gunn replied:
“Like why would you even believe a rando on social networking? Of course not. If it was canceled it would be canceled. Who has time for charades? I’ve been one of Matt’s biggest cheerleaders for years – since Cloverfield and the Apes’ movies. We are eagerly awaiting his script.”
Case closed, right? Not to everyone. Some people question why this script has taken so long to materialize when Reeves confirmed he had a vision for a trilogy before he even filmed the first movie. It also doesn’t help that actors such as Jeffrey Wright and Colin Farrell have publicly stated they’re waiting for scripts too.
One Threads user suggested that Pattinson might be speaking to the enemy already, writing: “Robert Pattinson meeting with Kevin Feige about joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe doesn’t exactly scream confidence in a Batman 2 script.” Of course this is simply someone talking nonsense on social media, and there’s no proof that any conversation took place between Pattinson and Feige.
So, is the script really the hold-up? Who knows, but it’s highly likely The Penguin‘s success got everyone thinking. The show exceeded all expectations and proved to the top brass that the Reevesverse has a lot more mileage and potential rather than being stuck in its own isolated corner of the DCU.
What if the reason there’s now yet another delay in The Batman – Part II is because they’re busy planning on how to incorporate Pattinson’s Batman into the DCU? It’s possible, since news has gone cold on the Batman: The Brave and the Bold movie. Perhaps Gunn and Reeves have a trick up their sleeve that will be revealed in due course. Or maybe not.