AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article contains plot details from THE BATMAN. Do not read it if you have yet to see the film.
We’re essentially a week into THE BATMAN‘s theatrical run and things have gone pretty darn good so far on all fronts — box office success, good reviews, and very positive reaction amongst both fans and the general audience.
What’s next?
Well for the next several weeks/couple of months, THE BATMAN will continue its run in theaters, make its way to HBO Max (and for a while, be on the big screen and the streamer concurrently), and then be released on home video (Blu-ray, On Demand, etc.).
That’s obvious, right? So, what’s really next?
Yes, THE BATMAN will get a sequel. Matt Reeves has not been coy about the fact that he has lots of ideas as to where the story could go in future films as well as saying many times he wants to build a Batverse — I prefer to call it THE BATMAN-verse — consisting of live-action films and HBO Max series. Producer Dyan Clark is on the record saying that a sequel to THE BATMAN will come within 5 years. Don’t freak out — I’m quite sure it’ll hit theaters sometime in 2025. Matt Reeves needs to take a bit of a break — he spent the last 5 years of his professional life working on THE BATMAN — and he’ll get to that sequel soon enough…if he hasn’t already.
Right now, enjoy the film and have fun speculating about the sequel.
ALSO READ | THE BATMAN Review by Bill “Jett” Ramey
My one and only prediction of a character that I 100% believe will be in THE BATMAN 2: Harvey Dent. It’s a no-brainer that he becomes Gotham’s new District Attorney now that that job is, um, open.
One more prediction: It will not be titled THE BATMAN 2.
While we’re waiting for the next film, we’ll have a couple of HBO Max projects that will allow us to visit THE BATMAN-verse.
THE PENGUIN
UPDATE (3/9/22, 2 PM CT) THE PENGUIN series has officially been greenlighted and ordered by HBO Max. Full details are HERE. – Jett
THE PENGUIN will star Colin Farrell reprising his role of Oz “The Penguin” Cobblepott and will be set right after the events of THE BATMAN. With Gotham’s top mob boss Carmine Falcone dead, a violent scramble to succeed The Roman will take place. Will The Penguin be able to hold off other second-tier mobsters to take the thrown?
“We’re doing [THE PENGUIN] with Colin, seeing Oz rise to power, almost like a SCARFACE story,” THE BATMAN producer Dylan Clark told SFX Magazine via Games Radar. “It’s exciting to do something like that just as a standalone, but it speaks to the character and our movie, so that you’ll go back to the movie [and say], ‘Oh, I see that backstory there, that line refers to this’.”
Colin Farrell discussed details on the upcoming series with ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT.
“We have to get into what made him the man he is. And also, it will pick up where this film finished off, I think. I think it’ll pick up a little short time after the last frame of this film,” Farrell said. “We’ll get to go on a little kind of left turn off to the world of Oz and how he’s beginning to kind of dream of filling a potential power vacuum that may exist.”
Farrell continued, “It’s a lovely, lovely character, and explores vulnerabilities. His violence is apparent, his propensity for violence and his ability to use it as a tool is apparent, but [also] to see we all have soft spots. Every single person. And to be able to find that location, dig around it would be fun.”
ARKHAM
THE BATMAN-verse architect Matt Reeves recently revealed that the previously announced HBO Max series focusing on the GCPD has been put on the backburner and a show set in Arkham has taken its place. Reeves also discussed the change with THE CYBER NERDS…
The GCDP thing, that story has kind of evolved. We’ve actually now moving more into the realm of exactly what would happen in the world of Arkham as it relates coming off of our movie, and some of the characters, again in their origins that you would – almost leaning into the idea of – it’s like a horror movie or a haunted house that is Arkham. The idea of, again the way that Gotham is a character in the movie, I really want Arkham to exist as a character, so that you go into this environment and encounter these characters in a way that feels really fresh. And so in our work on Gotham, that story started to evolve, and it started feeling, ‘Wait, we should really lean into this.’ And that’s kind of where that’s gone.
So why ARKHAM instead of GCPD? Matt Reeves explained what the series would’ve been about and why they switched gears (via the HAPPY, SAD, CONFUSED PODCAST)…
The series was going to be kind of like PRINCE OF THE CITY, where it was going to be year one. Because the movie is year two, and I wanted it to be the first appearance. But it wasn’t going to be a Batman story, it was going to be about this corrupt cop. And it was going to be about how the worst gang in Gotham was the GCPD. And [Bruce] was going to come across paths, he would have touched paths with Gordon who would have been — it would have been someone to measure him against. But it would be a battle for his soul.
[Warner Bros.] didn’t not like the idea. They just wanted it to be, they wanted to center a show on a character who was more– I get it. And so I was like, OK. So maybe someday we’ll do that show.
Hopefully, they will get to make GCPD one day. But back to ARKHAM, does anyone want to bet that Barry Keoghan’s Joker will be part of this thing?
It’ll also be interesting to see which other classic Batman villains will show up in this series as well as how they will be interpreted by Reeves and THE BATMAN-verse team. We know Reeves is going for a grounded, realistic take when it comes to this world, so it will indeed be fun to see what they come up with. Also, it doesn’t mean that all or any of the characters featured in ARKHAM will end up on the big screen in THE BATMAN sequels, but at least we’ll know that they exist.
Plus, it’s the perfect show and setting to introduce Dr. Hugo Strange!
CATWOMAN
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Well, there you have it, while THE BATMAN 2 (or whatever it’ll ultimately be titled) is 3 years out, we won’t have to go without THE BATMAN-verse during the gap. I’m sure that THE PENGUIN and ARKHAM will get here soon enough and likely scheduled so that the wait between each and then the sequel is evenly spaced out.
And for now, enjoy the remainder of THE BATMAN‘s theatrical run and go see it again! – Bill “Jett’ Ramey
