Matt Reeves’ Batman Epic Crime Saga continues in The Batman: Part II — and potentially in the wider DC Universe. Weeks after DC Studios co-chief James Gunn revealed that he “contemplated” incorporating Reeves’ universe and knighting Robert Pattinson the DCU Batman, Reeves gave an update on The Batman sequel scheduled to film this year. The filmmaker told MTV News that the focus is on the next chapter of his Crime Saga now set to open in theaters in October 2027.
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“It really comes down to whether or not it makes sense,” Reeves said when asked about integrating Pattinson and the Batman Epic Crime Saga into Gunn’s DCU. “What’s been great is there is a story that I wanted to tell we’re calling the Epic Crime Saga, which is the thrust of what we want to do. And it’s been important to me to be able to play that out.”
Reeves added that Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Studios, producers on The Penguin and The Batman: Part II alongside Reeves’ 6th & Idaho, “have been really, really great about that, and they’re letting us do that.”
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“What the future brings, I can’t really tell you,” Reeves continued. “I have no idea right now, except that my head is down now about getting The Batman: Part II shooting and to make it something really special, which is, of course, the most important thing.”
Asked what happens should Gunn and Safran decide they want Pattinson as the DCU Batman, Reeves said, “You know, I don’t know. We’ll have to see where that goes.”
Reeves also served as an executive producer on the 1940s-set Warner Bros. Animation series Batman: Caped Crusader, and will produce — alongside Gunn and Safran’s DC Studios — the live-action Clayface movie scripted by Mike Flanagan and the animated Robins movie Dynamic Duo via his 6th & Idaho Productions. Reeves was also overseeing a since-scrapped Arkham Asylum series first announced to be part of the Reeves-verse before Gunn clarified that show would also take place in the DCU.
Gunn recently told the Happy Sad Confused podcast that “[we] contemplate everything, we talk about everything” when asked if there have been discussions about potentially integrating The Batman universe into the relaunched DCU. The Max adult animated series Creature Commandos is the first title in the rebooted canon, which officially launches with Gunn’s upcoming Superman movie this summer. (Recent episodes of the Gunn-pennedCreature Commandos featured brief cameo appearances by the DCU Batman, although the Dark Knight was appropriately concealed in shadows.)
“You’d be an idiot not [to consider it],” Gunn said before adding that DC Studios is also “committed” to telling Elseworlds stories set outside of the DCU canon. One of the first DCU projects greenlit by Gunn and Safran is The Brave and the Bold, which will introduce the DCU Batman and Robin (Damian Wayne).
“I want the freedom to tell Elseworlds stories. We want to be able to tell a story in which Superman is very different [from his DCU counterpart],” Gunn said. “We want to play with these characters in different ways. One of the things I love about DC over Marvel comic books is that those things are much more plentiful — there’s many more Elseworlds stories, there’s many more presentations of Wonder Woman, and Batman, and Superman, especially, that you see them showing up in different ways in different Elseworlds stories. I think that’s part of the fun of DC.”
In interviews, Pattinson has expressed a fondness for more fantastical Batman rogues like Mister Freeze and Clayface. Reeves, meanwhile, has opted for a more grounded approach with grittier versions of villains like Colin Farrell’s Penguin and Paul Dano’s Riddler.
“In my view, I just feel drawn to finding the grounded version of everything,” Reeves said in 2022. “To me, it would be a challenge in an interesting way to try to figure out how that could happen. Even the idea of something like Mr. Freeze, that’s such a great story, right? I think there’s actually a grounded version of that story that could be really powerful and could be really great.”
“I love that fantastical side of Batman, but this iteration, obviously — while being very comics faithful — I don’t think this one, necessarily, doesn’t lean into the fantastical,” he continued. “But I think, to me, what would be interesting would be to try to unwind that fantastical and see, ‘Well, how could that make sense here?’ And so that’s how I see it.”
Warner Bros. has set DC Studios’ Superman for July 11, and has dated Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow for June 26, 2026, followed by Clayface on Sept. 11, 2026, and DC Studios and Warner Bros. Pictures Animation’s Dynamic Duo on June 30, 2028. The Batman: Part II was recently delayed a year from Oct. 2, 2026, to Oct. 1, 2027. DC Studios has yet to announce a release date for the DCU Batman movie The Brave and the Bold, which has tapped The Flash filmmaker Andy Muschietti to direct.
