By Drew Dietsch
| Published 12 seconds ago
I was extremely skeptical of The Batman when I walked into the theater back in 2022. I walked out surprised beyond measure and legitimately moved by the story director Matt Reeves told. I still find The Batman to be a successful exploration of its themes and characters, but even my stalwart Batman-lovin’ self felt deflated by the appearance of yet another version of The Joker by the movie’s end.
Still, after being so uneasy about The BatmanMatt Reeves had won me over and I was in the bag for whatever came next from this iteration of the Caped Crusader. That ended up being The Penguina critically lauded television series that I enjoyed well enough, but that series being the official follow-up to The Batman seeded the kind of dilution effect that has turned me off of the MCU.
Three years later, The Batman: Part II script by Matt Reeves and Mattson Tomlin was submitted to DC Studios, but we have no idea when we can expect to see that movie. Heck, it might not get made at all considering the entire balancing act DC Studios head James Gunn is doing with the DCU and its own version of Batman.
Frankly, I’m at a point where I’d rather not get The Batman: Part II unless it’s got some real juice in the tank.
A Batman Story We Haven’t Seen Before
As a Bat-dork, the potential of the DCU Batman is more exciting to me because it’s much more likely to present a Batman story/world/characters that we haven’t gotten on the big screen before. After seeing how successful Superman (my review) deployed a Superman story we hadn’t seen on the big screen before, that’s the direction where the juice seems to be flowing.
Whereas The Batman: Part II is going up against itself and The Penguin. If it feels like it isn’t bringing a narrative freshness to the Batman universe, I fear it’s going to succumb to a weaker reception. I hope to be surprised once again by this take on the character and his world, but it’s already got one big point in the Win Column for me. Trying to match that is going to be tough.
The Batman Universe
Thanks to Batman’s popularity, it’s been very easy for the Batman universe to exist on its own in popular media. It is expansive and beloved enough to sustain itself outside of its DC connections. But that also means we’ve been inundated with Too Many Jokers over the years at the multiplex.
I don’t know that The Joker teased in The Batman is going to play a central role in the sequel, but even planting that seed is enough to worry that the well is poisoned. Granted, The Penguin was a decent enough expansion pack to the movie, but it also felt the need to reinterpret a well-trodden villain instead of branching out to something newer.
The potential for Batman’s universe in the DCU is more diverse whereas The Batman: Part II is going to need to present an idea that argues for what’s likely another riff on too familiar Bat-tropes.
All this said, I want The Batman: Part II to succeed as a creative endeavor. The ending moments of The Batman with Bruce Wayne comforting a scared child are some of the best feelings I’ve felt with any Batman story. I want to reach those highs again in The Batman: Part II. I want to get excited about that movie. Here’s hoping it gives me plenty of reason to do that.