James Gunn Brings Even More Bad News For The Batman 2

The Batman Part 2’s newest revelation on the status of its script is even more disappointing for impatient fans. James Gunn, co-CEO of DC Studios, recently confirmed that the sequel’s script is even further off than fans thought.

Since the success of The Batman in 2022, and even moreso with HBO’s The Penguin, DC fans have been eager to revisit Matt Reeves’ Gotham and the teased deeper exploration of the city’s corrupt core. Yet, more than two years after the first movie dropped, the pace of the sequel has been anything but snappy, leading to fears the film had been canceled. Initially slated for the fall of 2025, The Batman 2 has been shifted to October 2026—four years after the first film. And now, even that seems not to be guaranteed.

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The Batman 2 Script Doesn’t Yet Have a First Draft

Reeves himself revealed in September that he had officially finished the script of The Batman 2, with plans to begin filming in 2025, only to be later debunked by James Gunn. When a fan recently asked Gunn on Threads whether Clayface and Scarecrow were set to be the movie’s main villains, as rumored by scooper Dan Marcus, Gunn responded with: “Firstly, no. Secondly, that couldn’t be true because there isn’t even a first draft of a script yet.” The confusion worsened two days later when a fan reminded Gunn of an earlier interview where Reeves shared that he had submitted a huge part of The Batman 2’s script to DC Studios, to which Gunn replied: “Both those things are true.”

Gunn and Reeves’ statements might seem contradictory at first sight, but it really isn’t. A draft refers to a complete and somewhat polished version of a script and not merely parts of it; thus, “big portions” of a script does not fit the qualification. The reality is most likely that Reeves is close to completing a first draft for The Batman 2′ script, parts of which Gunn has almost certainly seen, but is yet to officially turn it in. The back-and-forth-ing with The Batman 2 is clearly taking a toll on fans who’ve been asked to wait three years, and maybe more, for the sequel. But this wouldn’t be the first—or longest—time that they’ve had to await the Caped Crusader’s return. After a solid outing with Batman Begins in 2005, it wouldn’t be until 2008, three years later, that Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale made it back to theaters with The Dark Knight. The Batman frenzy during the reign of Tim Burton and Michael Keaton’s 1989 sensation, Batman, did little to hasten the follow-up, Batman Returns, released in 1992.

Despite the justified frustration, some fans would rather have Matt Reeves take his time with the script—and most importantly, figure out the right villains—than have the filmmaker succumb to studio pressure. Given Colin Farell’s performance as Oswald Cobb in The Penguin, and emergence as Gotham’s topmost crime boss, it’s not far-fetched to envision Reeves’ going back to the drawing board to expand his role in The Batman 2.

The Batman 2 is scheduled for release in October 2026.

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The Batman Part II

The Batman Part II is the sequel to Matt Reeve’s The Batman, released in 2022, and will continue where the original film left off. The film shares a universe with the HBO Max original Penguin series and sees the return of the Riddler and a different incarnation of the Joker.

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