The Penguin Finale has fans Matt Reeves’ The Batman Universe on high, ready for the arrival of The Batman: Part II in 2026. While The Penguin has shown there is massive potential in expanding The Batman’s world beyond the main film series, that revelation is coming at a time when James Gunn and DC Studios are trying to launch a whole new DC Universe franchise, which will introduce it’s own version of Batman and his world.
In the past, Gunn and his DC Studios co-head Peter Safran have maintained that Warner Bros. and DC Studios will keep with the tradition of taking the “Elseworlds” approach to DC content. In that format, there can be standalone franchises for popular characters like Batman, which are independent of the shared universe. However, We’ve also had years of examples to teach us that this approach doesn’t work – whether it was the Fox-Marvel Universe vs. the Marvel Cinematic Universe; Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy vs. Zack Snyder’s DCEU; or most recently Sony’s Spider-Man Universe and its push-pull tensions with the MCU.
Why DC Studios Would End The Batman After Part II
Warner Bros. and DC Studios may want to avoid the mistakes of the past and put their money and focus on promoting one version of DC’s flagship characters at a time, for maximum mainstream exposure. The idea of Robert Pattinson’s Batman continuing alongside Flash director Andy Muschietti’s Batman reboot The Brave and the Bold seems more an more unlikely – no matter how popular Reeves’ franchise is getting.
Just look at the timing: right now, The Batman: Part II has a theatrical release date of October 2, 2026; The Brave and the Bold has no set release date yet, but fans and industry insiders have been speculating that it won’t release until The Batman movies are done. With the level of interconnected storytelling the DCU will be doing (starting with Gunn’s Superman movie next summer), it’s nearly impossible to imagine getting a lot of DCU TV shows and films that don’t make reference to Batman, the Bat-Family, or Gotham City, which means that new DCU Batman actor would probably need to be revealed sooner before later.
There again lies the kind of brand confusion that Warner Bros. has dealt with before – and could understandably want to avoid dealing with again. Two Batman characters appearing in two separate – and very different style – franchises, in the same years? There might not be enough room at the box office for that – even for Batman.
James Gunn Said There Can Be Two Batmen
Early this year, James Gunn debunked the idea that The Batman movies and The Brave and the Bold couldn’t co-exist, when he outright told a fan “No,” in regards to a rumor that Brave and the Bold was only coming after The Batman films.
That response suggests that not only could The Brave and the Bold arrive before The Batman movies are done, it could indeed arrive in close proximity to Reeves’ sequel – in, say, 2027. Marvel will be deep into its bag of heavy-hitter franchises, with Avengers: Doomsday, Spider-Man 4, and Avengers: Secret Wars all hitting theaters between Summer 2026 and Summer 2027. DC could actually do something unprecedented and hit fans with a double-dose of Batman to offset Marvel’s box office dominance. If any DC character has a chance to collect on a double-dip, it’s pretty much Batman.
Did The Penguin Change Things?
There is another “Option C” way this whole thing could play out: key delays between The Batman films, bolstered by TV spinoffs. At the time of writing this, HBO’s The Penguin has just aired its finale episode to overwhelming critical acclaim, massive buzz with fans, and a cemented status as one of the big frontrunners for the 2025 Emmy Awards. The fact that The Penguin was the subject of a show – which had almost no Batman presence – and was successful as it’s been… It pretty much just proves that Matt Reeves has created a Noir-style playground in his version of Gotham that fans are engaged by.
There’s already a lot of imaginative speculation starting, about how what characters from Batman lore we could see next in TV spinoffs. It would easy for DC and Warner Bros. to let The Batman: Part II out in theaters in 2026, then put the third film on back-burner for until 2029 or 2030, with another prestige TV series to fill the gap int between. After all, fans of The Batman are used to waiting: the first film took from 2019 (or earlier) to 2022 before it hit the screen; the sequel isn’t arriving until four years later. A 2030 release date for The Batman: Part III would be right on par. It would be an elegant dance of having one Batman at a time spotlighted on the big screen, while the other franchise continues world-building through either TV spinoffs or crossovers with other projects (in the DCU).
Matt Reeves recently signaled that the TV front is a new lane of possiblitiy after Penguin, stating in a recent interview that:
“To see that the show [The Penguin] is being embraced is really, really exciting. We have been talking about doing other shows… I think the idea of being able to put a lens on these characters is a really exciting idea. It’s about cities and their dysfunction and the world and its dysfunction, which is what Batman stories are all about. They’re all about Gotham being a place that should be better. And you can have that experience of this most novelistic epic crime saga, but you also just get these separate experiences. They have their own dramatic value… and the idea is to do these other stories in the same way.”
Will DC Studios End The Batman Franchise After Part II?
Right now there’s no reason to think that doom is in the cards for Matt Reeves’ Batman Universe – especially after Penguin just hit such a big home run. More likely, there are some big discussions happening at Warner Bros./DC Studios right now – and possibly some tension within those discussions. Gunn and Safran may prefer a clean slate to launch their new DCU Batman, but their franchise is still untested, while Reeves and The Batman Universe are only gaining more acclaim across movie, TV, and streaming platforms.
This issue may get a pin put in it for the next year, when Gunn launches his big Superman reboot film in theaters, as well as Peacemaker Season 2 and the Creature Commandos animated series on TV/streaming. Once the first data about the DCU’s success are in, Warner Bros. and DC could choose to push all their chips to one bet, or spread them across the table.
Stay tuned. For now, The Batman and The Penguin are streaming on Max.
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