The Batman Part II: Everything We Know About Matt Reeves' Sequel

UPDATE Sept. 7: Robert Pattinson says the sequel is “quite radical” and calls Reeves’ script “a really radical retelling of that moment.” Speaking at the Venice Film Festival, Pattinson said even the playback on set looks different from the first film.

UPDATE Sept. 4: The best look yet at the suit. New set video shows off the new Batsuit, with longer ears on the cowl exactly as Matt Reeves said, plus Batman riding away on a commandeered GCPD police bike.

UPDATE Aug. 23: Reeves’ sequel is the only Batman movie moving. Filmmaker Dan Marcus says Andy Muschietti told him all work on Gunn’s The Brave and the Bold is on hold until after the merger is settled, which lines up with the contract limits our merger reporting has laid out.

UPDATE Aug. 23: Gotham’s police have turned on the Bat. New set video shows the GCPD opening fire on the Batmobile during the Glasgow night shoots, with cruisers and motorcycle units boxing the car in. What Batman did to earn it, and whether Bruce is even behind the wheel, is the new mystery. The latest footage from the shoot shows how the chase ends: the GCPD comes up empty.

UPDATE Aug. 21: Incoming owner David Ellison is going all in on Batman, per our sources: a Reeves trilogy push, an Arkham Asylum series trilogy, and early Part II reaction that’s “off the roof.” The same source says Paramount/WB see Pattinson as the next Tom Cruise.

UPDATE Aug. 20: Gotham is frozen over in Glasgow. Night shoots are underway on St Vincent Street, and new set video shows off the battle-damaged Batmobile tearing through fake snow, with the three-week Scotland leg running into late September. Production signage reads “Semper Vigilans,” the sequel’s reported working title.

UPDATE Aug. 19: The Harvey Dent “confirmation” just fell apart. Per The Wrap, Sebastian Stan was misquoted by the French outlet, which has since corrected the article, meaning the villain mystery is wide open again.

Matt Reeves is finally back in Gotham. The Batman Part II is shooting right now with Robert Pattinson in the cowl, a stacked wave of new cast members whose roles Warner Bros. refuses to confirm, a frozen Gotham City, and a delay that our insiders say has nothing to do with post-production. Here’s our running breakdown of everything we know: the release date, the cast, the villain mystery, and every set reveal as it surfaces. We update it the moment anything breaks, so bookmark it and check back.

The Batman Part II Release Date

The Batman Part II opens in theaters on February 18, 2028. That hands the movie the four-day Presidents Day holiday weekend, the same launchpad Black Panther used in 2018, and puts the sequel nearly six years after The Batman opened in March 2022.

Reeves announced the date himself on Vimeo in July, alongside the first camera test footage of Pattinson’s return. The movie had been set for October 1, 2027, and we covered the delay and everything around it when it landed.

Warner Bros. shuffled the deck behind it. J.J. Abrams’ The Great Beyond, starring Glen Powell and Jenna Ortega, moved into Batman’s old October 2027 slot and picked up an IMAX 70mm rollout with it.

Why The Batman Part II Was Delayed

The official line is more time for post-production. Per our insiders, that’s not the story.

The “Reeves is slow” narrative is backwards. James Gunn delayed and delayed on the script, then offered notes, and Reeves waited him out with Mike De Luca’s full blessing. Our exclusive report on the delay lays it all out. By February 2028, the executive who gave Reeves notes is expected to be long gone, as the Paramount board wants Gunn and Peter Safran out at DC Studios once the merger closes.

There’s more. We’re told the standoff over Gunn wanting his own DCU Batman, with Alan Ritchson a frontrunner, is the real reason The Batman 2 moved. Reeves pushed back on Gunn touching Batman ahead of his film, and the delay opens more than seven months between Man of Tomorrow and Reeves’ sequel. That DCU Batman is now reportedly on ice: a filmmaker says Muschietti told him all work on The Brave and the Bold is on hold until the merger is settled.

Gunn, for his part, defended the delay publicly, noting five-year-plus gaps between sequels are “fairly common.” He has also shot down one internet theory: The Batman Part III is not secretly filming alongside Part II.

The Batman Part II Story

Reeves is keeping the plot locked down, but the evidence is stacking up.

The sequel continues the grounded crime saga of The Batman and The Penguin, with Reeves directing from a script co-written with Mattson Tomlin. The Batmobile in Glasgow is the same muscle car from 2022, essentially unchanged and already battle-damaged, which fits everything pointing to the story picking up not long after the first film. The Glasgow footage also shows why it’s damaged: the GCPD opens fire on the car and chases it through downtown Gotham. That’s a hard turn from the end of the first film, where Batman was pulling survivors out of the flood as a public symbol of hope.

Gotham is getting a winter. Reeves teased “#SnowTires” with the first camera tests back in May, and the Glasgow shoot has dressed entire streets in frost and fake ice.

Then there’s the working title: Semper Vigilans, Latin for always vigilant, or always watching. Fans have connected the phrase to the Court of Owls, which tracks with a July set leak tying Charles Dance’s mystery role to an Owls-style secret society. Consider that speculation for now. The signage is real.

Reeves’ own teases have fed the fire. His first shot from behind the camera appeared to show a body, and the official logo sent fans chasing a Detective Comics clue. A rumor relayed through one of our sources says the delay came down partly to rewrites adding Robin, or Robins, plus more Penguin and Joker.

The Batman Part II Cast and Characters

Confirmed to return:

Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne / Batman
Jeffrey Wright as James Gordon
Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth
Colin Farrell as Oz Cobb / The Penguin
Jayme Lawson as Bella Real
Gil Perez-Abraham as Officer Martinez

Confirmed newcomers, with characters Warner Bros. has not confirmed:

Scarlett Johansson, said to be playing Gilda Dent
Sebastian Stan, said to be playing Harvey Dent
Charles Dance, said to be playing Christopher Dent
Brian Tyree Henry, role undisclosed
Sebastian Koch, role undisclosed

Reeves announced the cast one post at a time on X back in May. Notably absent from every announcement: Zoe Kravitz’s Selina Kyle, after earlier leaks pointed to a Catwoman exit.

Behind the camera, Erik Messerschmidt replaces Greig Fraser as cinematographer, and Michael Giacchino is expected to return as composer.

The Batman Part II Villain Mystery

This is where the movie’s marketing war is being fought right now, and nobody’s story lines up.

Sebastian Stan told a French paper he plays Harvey Dent, then The Wrap reported he was misquoted and the outlet corrected it. Jeff Sneider’s June report claims Stan is actually serial killer Victor Zsasz, and Sneider hasn’t budged. Stan has separately teased playing “many roles in this one” while working with hair and makeup on his character’s disfigurement. His shaved head, long used as a Zsasz argument, turned out to be for Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord.

The rest of the board is rumor, and we’re labeling it that way: Brian Tyree Henry connected to the district attorney’s office and floated as the real Two-Face, a July set leak claiming Scarlett Johansson is playing a grounded Poison Ivy who poisons Gotham’s elite, Charles Dance tied to the Court of Owls, and Barry Keoghan’s “pre-Joker Joker” returning from the first film’s Arkham scene.

The Batsuit and The Batmobile

Reeves has been confirming details one fan reply at a time. The new cowl has longer ears, and the movie is shooting on custom Panavision anamorphic glass built specifically for the sequel.

The Batmobile is the 2022 muscle car, back and battered. Glasgow set photos showed a backup chassis trucked in alongside the hero car, standard practice for a shoot where the car takes a beating. Set video from the night shoots shows exactly where that damage is coming from, with Gotham PD unloading on the Batmobile in the middle of the street.

The Batman Part II Set News

Filming began June 12, 2026 at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, with location work through London and Liverpool before the move north. The latest:

The Penguin and Reeves’ Gotham

The movie is moving forward as the TV side of Reeves’ Gotham contracts. The Penguin Season 2 is reportedly dead, with Colin Farrell’s Batman role shrinking, and DC and HBO passed on Catwoman and Poison Ivy series pitches.

One project is headed the other way. Per our insiders, the Arkham Asylum series Gunn killed is back in play at HBO, with Reeves on the De Luca-Abdy pitch list.

Now it goes further. Per our newest exclusive, Ellison wants Reeves to finish a trilogy plus an Arkham Asylum series trilogy, with Batman and Catwoman cameos.

The Latest The Batman Part II News

Everything we’ve been tracking as it breaks:

The Batman Part II opens in theaters February 18, 2028. We’ll keep this guide updated as more is confirmed.

About Matt McGloin

Matt McGloin is the editor-in-chief and publisher of Cosmic Book News, the independent entertainment news site he founded in 2008. He covers movies, comics, TV, video games and pop culture and has reported major industry scoops over the years, including revealing the Avengers: Endgame title ahead of its official announcement. Through Cosmic Book News, he helped Marvel Comics promote Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova through exclusive previews, artwork, and interviews, with the site also quoted in solicitations and on comic covers. He also reported on Marvel’s Daredevil: Born Again retooling before it was later confirmed by the trades.

The Batman Part II: Everything We Know About Matt Reeves’ Sequel