Politics tamfitronics
Everyone has their own idea of what Batman represents. He’s either a vigilante, the world’s greatest detective, ot a traumatized orphan who runs around Gotham dressed like a bat. But in modern portrayals of the DC Comics superhero, comic-book writers and big-budget film directors have wrestled with the question: “Is Batman even a good person?”
For Matt Reeves—director of 2022’s The Batman starring Robert Pattinson and Zoë Kravitz—the answer is a resounding yes. Where Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight proclaimed, “He’s the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs,” Reeves responds that Batman’s pursuit of justice is what helps him survive. “The thing that I always think about is how Batman is not just trying to do something for the greater good,” Reeves tells Esquire. “It’s the only way he can make sense of his own life. In a way, it’s saving him.”
Regardless of where you rank Reeves’s The Batman among the Bat-flicks, fans loved Reeves’ first installment. The film made roughly $772.2 million at the box office, according to Box Office Mojo, and received mostly positive reviews from critics. Now, a spinoff series for Colin Farrell’s street-level villain, The Penguin, is premiering on HBO. The story will lead directly into The Batman Part II, when Pattinson will return as the Caped Crusader to deal with Gotham’s next foe. The sequel is set for release on October 3, 2025.
Robert Pattinson returns as Bruce Wayne/Batman in The Batman Part II, out October 2025.
What Will Happen in The Batman Part II?
There’s no word yet on the story for The Batman Part II, but Reeves teases that Paul Dano’s QAnon Riddler from the first film is just the first domino to fall when it comes to real-world politics seeping into the city of Gotham. “I was very conscious about wanting to make the Gotham of The Batman a Gotham that was our world,” Reeves says. So, one of his major inspirations for The Batman Part II is “the intense division” of our current political climate.
“On the one hand, you say it’s a thing going on in the United States—and obviously Gotham is an American city—but really it’s worldwide,” Reeves explains. “There’s just tremendous division. The way that the world gets its information, its news. Everybody is in their own silo. That sense of the environment of today, where it’s just very easy for people to be completely separate and at complete odds. That’s definitely one of the things that we’re looking at in Gotham. Some of that is just the way that society is, but some of that is intentional—and to the degree that that’s intentional, and how that fits into the larger picture of what the motivations behind that might be, that’s one of the things that we we’re exploring as well.”
One of Batman’s most famous foes may have a hand in these themes. Fans are undoubtedly very excited for Barry Keoghan’s Joker to show up once again, especially after The Batman‘s final moments teased his take on the character. At the same time, it’s possible that Reeves is saving the character for a potential trilogy-ending blockbuster finale. Until then, we’ll remain on the edge of our seats.
