He is vengeance. He is the night. He is... delayed again. Yes, having had to dim the Bat-signal once this year already when we learned that Matt Reeves' The Batman follow-up had been bumped from its late 2025 release window to October 2026, Warner Bros. has just today confirmed we'll be waiting even longer yet before R-Battz takes flight as the Caped Crusader again. Per Deadline's reporting, The Batman Part II is now slated for a 1 October, 2027 release, meaning there will have been a whole five-and-a-half-year wait between Parts I and II.
Now, given the huge critical and commercial success of The Batman, and the acclaim this year's spin-off series The Penguin has come in for too (it's not on Empire's 20 Best TV Shows Of 2024 list for nothing), you may be somewhat perplexed as to why the already long-gestating sequel is being left to gestate even longer. But rather than any sort of creative difference shenanigans concerning James Gunn's burgeoning DCU or cold feet (wings?) on Robert Pattinson's part, it seems instead to be a simple case of Reeves taking his sweet time to get the script locked in.
Earlier this evening, DC Studios co-CEO Gunn took to Threads to confirm the release date change and offer some additional context to the situation, writing: "Sure. Yes, it is true. The only reason for the delay is there isn’t a full script (those of you who follow me here probably know that already). Matt is committed to making the best film he possibly can, and no one can accurately guess exactly how long a script will take to write. Once there is a finished script, there is around two years for pre-production, shooting and post-production on big films."
Between this slightly disappointing update on The Batman Part II and word coming through yesterday that Andy Muschietti's Batman: The Brave And The Bold movie for Gunn's DCU has been "postponed", it's been a tough 24 hours to be a Bat-fan. But both the projects mentioned here are still coming, neither are anywhere close to approaching MCU Blade territory just yet, and the pushing back of one Robert Pattinson movie's release did at least come with a silver lining — the bringing forwards of another. Bong Joon Ho's very highly anticipated sci-fi Mickey 17 has done a drop date switcheroo with Ryan Coogler's Sinners, and will now hit cinemas on 7 March instead of 18 April. And to be fair to Robert Pattinson, coming off the back of playing 18 parts in Mickey 17, maybe an extra year before donning the cape, cowl, and guy liner once again is only fair. We don't want him to run out of Bat-teries now, do we?