James Gunn may be working on a Batman movie for the DC Universe, but that doesn’t mean Matt Reeves won’t finish out his vision for The Batman Saga.
The filmmaker, who co-wrote and directed 2022’s The Batman, recently confirmed there are plans to continue the franchise with The Batman Part III, which will seemingly wrap up Robert Pattinson’s tenure as the Caped Crusader.
“Yes, that is still the plan,” Reeves said, confidently, during an interview with Collider. “I mean, it’s sticking very closely to the path we envisioned.”
Although a third installment has not been officially announced by Warner Bros. and DC Studios, The Batman Saga has been immensely successful for the two studios. Its latest entry, the HBO spinoff series The Penguin, is currently rated fresh on the review aggregate website, Rotten Tomatoes, with 91 percent.
However, plans could always change, as Reeves acknowledged that the story depicted in The Penguin was originally part of The Batman Part II, which is currently being written by the filmmaker and Mattson Tomlin.
“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. Because we know that he’s introduced in The Batman as a kind of mid-level, sort of overlooked, mocked figure, who’s not yet in anyone’s eyes the kingpin we come to know him as in the lore,” Reeves explained. “And so, that was deliberate because I wanted— 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.”
The Penguin will be followed by The Batman Part 2
The Penguin, which premieres on Sept. 19, will bridge the gap between the first two The Batman movies, with Colin Farrell set to return as Oz Cobblepot/Penguin in the sequel. Production on The Batman sequel is expected to begin at Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden in England in April 2025, giving Reeves and his team just over a year and a half to complete filming and post-production on the hotly-anticipated DC project, which is scheduled to hit theaters on October 2, 2026.
