The Batman 2 Delayed a Year
Battinson will have to stay in his cave a little longer. Today, Warner Bros. announced that the sequel to The Batman (henceforth The Batman 2) will be delayed almost a year to the day, from October 3, 2025, to October 2, 2026. According to Deadline, the delay was caused by the writers’ and actors’ strikes of 2023, which put a monkey wrench in a lot of movie releases. This moves it further away from another DC superhero movie, James Gunn’s Superman, which hits theaters on July 11, 2025. Directed by Matt Reeves, The Batman 2 is an “Elseworlds” story that will not be part of Gunn and Peter Safran’s DCU; that universe’s Batman will be introduced in Andy Muschietti’s The Brave and the Bold, unless he pops up in a small role somewhere else before his first solo film.
We’re probably going to see more movies get delayed as productions and, especially, pre-productions start up again, and the directors and producers realize they’re not going to make their release dates. When you lose three months of development to strikes, these things are inevitable. I’m not fussed about The Batman 2; I didn’t like the first one, so the delay doesn’t affect me. But it seems to be pretty popular, and it’s even got a spin-off TV show in Penguin, which is on schedule to air on HBO later this year. I wonder if this is a good thing or a bad thing in regards to James Gunn’s increasingly confusing DCU. For example, he just said that season 1 of Peacemaker is not part of the DCU continuity, but season 2 will be. How is anyone supposed to make sense of that? Is it going to involve the multiverse? If not, it seems like Gunn is just doing things for the sake of doing them. Insofar as The Batman 2, it’s now going to be released a year away from Superman, which could get Gunn’s universe out of people’s heads before they see an Elseworlds movie. On the other hand, they’ll have had time to sit with Superman, and if it’s good, could be wondering where the DCU will go next, only to have an unrelated movie featuring the next member of DC’s trinity. And if this is confusing people in our circles who pay close attention and have experience dealing with multiverse stories, how are regular moviegoers going to react?
