Warner Bros. has announced that The Batman Part II is now coming out on October 2, 2026, which represents a full-year delay from its original October 2025 date. It’s been all quiet on the Batman front for a while. The first movie came out two years ago, and the sequel was announced a couple of months after that, during the studio’s CinemaCon presentation in 2022.
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That also happened six months before James Gunn was appointed co-head of DC Studios and started developing Superman, which is currently shooting. Gunn is not overseeing The Batman Part II, which under Warner Bros. Discovery’s new org scheme falls into the film studio proper and Mike De Luca/Pam Abdy’s jurisdiction. Matt Reeves is coming back to direct and is writing the script with Mattson Tomlin, who was already brought in to punch up the third act of the previous film. Tomlin will now receive a co-writing credit.
Why Was The Batman Part II Delayed?
The reason for the delay was attributed by Deadline to be the five-month strike last year. Reeves is known to be a slow writer, having turned in the draft for the first film to the studio many months after the original deadline. With the sequel, there was hope that he would be a bit faster, but this is one of those situations where you don’t want to rush the artist.
Warner Bros. would have probably liked to strike while the iron was hot on Robert Pattinson as Batman, but this movie, amid the current state of things at WBD, is shaping up to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they can fill up the gap between both Battinson movies with James Gunn’s new DCU (Superman is due out July 11, 2025). On the other hand, they run the risk of confusing audiences by bringing back the “previous” (as if that word means anything anymore after Michael Keaton returned for a brief stint in The Flash) Batman after they’ve started a new storyline with David Corenswet leading a bunch of new characters.
But that will be a microcosm of things going forward. Gunn will obviously want his own Batman in the DCU, and probably sooner rather than later. Andy Muschietti has already signed on to direct the Bat-family movie The Brave and the Bold for him. But De Luca and Abdy probably want a trilogy out of Pattinson as well, so at some point, multiplexes will have two different Batmen with their respective storylines — something that didn’t pan out very well last year with Keaton. Will audiences respond? As always, the answer probably is “As long as the movies are good”.
But it’s not just a big vacuum in between Batman movies. The Colin Farrell-led spin-off series from the first picture, The Penguin, is coming out on Max later this summer, which will probably serve as a good reminder to audiences that there is still an Elseworld continuity with these characters.
Who Will Return for The Batman Part II?
With the script not even finished yet, its current state is unknown. The Internet has been running away with villain rumors for so long, but the truth is, nobody knows anything about it until pre-production starts or further announcements are made. However, we can probably guess that both Robert Pattinson and Zoë Kravitz will return as Batman and Catwoman.
Whether Reeves brings back some of the villains from the first one, like Paul Dano’s Riddler or Farrell’s Penguin remains to be seen. However, Barry Keoghan, who played the Joker in a brief scene in the first movie (and an extended deleted scene), did tease recently that he may be putting on the makeup for the sequel. Speaking to ETalk, he said:
“I can’t really say anything about that. It would be exciting, wouldn’t it? To see the Joker come to life again. My smile says all, you know what I mean?”
– Barry Keoghan with ETalk
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Stay tuned as the situation continues to develop. What do you think about The Batman Part II‘s delay? Do you think it’s because of the work stoppage last year, or is there another behind-the-scenes reason for it? Who do you think should be the main villain in the sequel? Let us know your thoughts on our social media and our Discord server!
SOURCE: Deadline
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