The Batman II delayed, Matt Reeves says Gotham is ‘more like our world’

Theatergoers will have to wait a bit longer for Robert Pattinson’s Batman to return to the big screen. Matt Reeves’ follow up to 2022’s The Batman has swooped back a year from its Oct. 2, 2026 release date to Oct. 1, 2027.

Warner Bros. greenlit the unnamed sequel in 2022, Reeves will direct and co-write the script with uncredited The Batman screenwriter Mattson Tomlin, with filming expected to begin in mid-2025. Most of the main cast, including Pattinson, Geoffrey Wright, Andy Serkis, and Colin Farrell, is already confirmed to return.

Reeves and Tomlin are naturally keeping the sequel’s script under wraps, but the director did offer some hints when speaking to Digital Spy this week. Though Paul Dano’s Riddler is locked away in Arkham now, Gotham is facing a slow recovery from the catastrophic flood he caused by destroying the city’s seawall. And according to Reeves, that’s made things pretty complicated for Batman.

”In the first movie, Batman views things very simplistically, he sees things in black and white. What he can represent and how he can affect that,” Reeves told Digital Spy. “As we enter into the next movie, there’s a lot more grey. There’s a lot more people at odds. There’s a lot more division in the city. It’s a lot more like our world is now, there’s a lot of turmoil because people are in their camps and they’re not communicating.”

Reeves added, “And when things are in grey, it makes it very hard to be Batman, so this is part of the challenge as we enter it.”