Rumors for The Batman 2 offer that Paul Dano will be back as the Riddler with Colin Farrell also returning as Penguin from the first movie.
The rumors might also very well mean Barry Keoghan could return as Joker and that some sort of Arkham Asylum story is being featured in the sequel.
The rumor comes from scooper Daniel RPK who says Paul Dano and Colin Farrell have signed on for The Batman – Part II.
What happened to The Riddler?
The last we saw of Paul Dano’s Riddler was at the end of The Batman where he was thrown into Arkham Asylum.
Batman had conversations with Riddler about his master plan involving the flooding of Gotham City, but Batman saved the day and went from being the vengeance of Gotham City to its hero. Meanwhile, Riddler befriended The Joker, with additional footage shown in the Arkham deleted scene.
What happened to The Penguin?
The Penguin HBO Max series is currently filming and will follow the events of the movie where, per Colin Farrell, the eight-episode series follows “Oz’s rise to power, filling that power vacuum created when Falcone was killed.”
“Matt’s idea originally was to have the Penguin show begin about a week after the end of the Batman film. And then if it works, if the trajectory is entertaining enough and the audience goes for it, and we do our jobs right… have Penguin feature in the second film and pick up where the HBO show will end. So I don’t know how much he’ll be in it,” said Farrell.
So assuming the rumors are right, that means The Batman 2 will in part pick up where The Penguin series ends which is assumed to see Penguin as the new crime boss of Gotham City.
Will there be an Arkham Asylum breakout?
What is interesting, particularly with the news of the return of Paul Dano as Riddler, is that years ago when I was first told the details about The Batman involving Batman in his second year of being a hero starring a pretty boy-type actor, which is what Reeves adapted, that version of The Batman was also said to involve many Batman villains and Arkham Asylum. So as Reeves adapted one part of the story, maybe the sequel is adapting the Arkham side of the story.
We see for The Batman 2, that Riddler will be returning along with Penguin, where we can guess both are not the major villain of the sequel, so that means The Batman 2 will have even more villains.
It could be possible there could be some sort of Arkham Asylum breakout scene involving the Riddler, maybe the Joker, and other Batman villain inmates.
Perhaps similar to the first movie and The Penguin series, the sequel will also lead into another series, as Matt Reeves is said to still be developing an Arkham series, and then into the third movie of the trilogy.
When does The Batman – Part II get released?
The Batman – Part II has an October 3, 2025 release date, starts filming in November, and is separate from the upcoming DCU reboot from James Gunn and Peter Safran who have confirmed they are fully behind and supporting Matt Reeves.
“Yes. Matt is working on The Batman – Part II, which he thinks of as a Batman crime saga that also includes the Penguin TV series,” said Gunn at the press event held in January. “The Batman is its own thing. Matt’s hard at work on it. He came in and pitched us some amazing stuff the other day, so our plan is for that to continue.”
Safran added, “Also, The Batman’s not a stepchild. It’s all under DC. We are fully invested in the success of The Batman just like we are everything else.”
