While promoting the release of the upcoming The Penguin series starring Colin Farreell, Matt Reeves has assured DC fans that his plan for The Batman with Robert Pattinson remains on track as a trilogy.
The filmmaker confirmed that The Batman II and the HBO series The Penguin are all part of his vision for the Batman universe he’s creating, described as the “Batman Epic Crime Saga.”
“Yes, that is still the plan,” Reeves told Collider, reaffirming his commitment to the trilogy. “I mean, it’s sticking very closely to the path we envisioned.”
Reeves continued, “Things kind of shifted. So, when we came up with the idea to do The Penguin, that was something where I had always intended to continue Penguin’s story and wanted to tell this story of his beginning of rise to power.”
He added that Penguin was introduced as a “mid-level, overlooked, mocked figure” in The Batman, but the spinoff will explore his rise to becoming the feared kingpin known in Gotham’s lore.
“Whereas it wasn’t Batman’s origin story, I wanted the origin stories of these other characters, of the Rogues Gallery, and that story was originally going to be the entrée into the next movie,” said Reeves.
He also previously told SFX magazine that The Batman II is slated to start filming next year, as the script is nearing completion.
“Colin [Farrell] will be part of the movie,” said Reeves. “We’ve shared [the script] as we’ve been going along with DC and they’re super excited. It’s going to dig into the epic story about deeper corruption and it goes into places he couldn’t even anticipate in the first one.”
Reeves also confirmed that Robert Pattinson is not on The Penguin series.
“I’m a point-of-view filmmaker. When I’m doing a Batman story, Batman and Bruce is going to be the main point of view. To explore the rogues gallery, they could never get the real estate we can do in a series. So Batman is in this [show] only as a sense that he’s a presence. You’re aware that all of these events began because of the Riddler, but the Riddler doesn’t appear and Batman doesn’t appear,” he told Total Film.
Reeves continued, “Rob is not going to be in the show. I’d rather take the Band-Aid off now. We did talk about all that but we felt the best way to do this was to go on a grand exploration of a guy grabbing for power in this moment.”
The Penguin premiers on HBO and Max on Sept. 19 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. The Batman Part II is due out October 2, 2026.
