Can a super-grungy The Batman sequel take the DC universe somewhere even darker?
Matt Reeves’ The Batman feels like a movie out of time, a superhero epic wonderfully bereft of fantasy elements, superpowers and magical bells and whistles. It is the kind of comic book movie that people who do not really like comic book movies can love, a sumptuously languid crime procedural that is full of orchestral, spiky splendour and Gotham City grit. A superhero flick that is so different from the likes of The Flash or Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania that it might as well be from a different film genre entirely.
And it is here perhaps that we should give credit to Warner Bros’ struggling DC regime. No matter how terrible its now-abandoned “extended universe” became over the past decade or so – and there were some pretty appalling low points – it is impossible to imagine a film like this emerging from any other studio. While Warner was overseeing a seemingly endless stream of mismatched, tonally chaotic episodes, it was also handing Reeves the keys to Gotham City and letting him run riot with an immense sense of style and panache. If The Batman isn’t the artiest superhero film ever made – how many other films in this genre take their cue elliptically from a Gus Van Sant drama about the final days of Kurt Cobain? – it is certainly making a damned good effort.
All of which means the news that Reeves’ forthcoming sequel is to be delayed by a year – it will now hit cinemas no sooner than autumn 2026 – feels well, just fine. Much like Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins before it, The Batman was the perfect exercise in introducing a new version of the caped crusader without giving away too much about where this refreshingly different, splendidly weird Dark Knight is likely to go next. So glacially paced was Reeves’ film that at one point it was quite possible to imagine that it might go the same way as David Fincher’s Zodiac (another key influence on the cat-andmouse ride with Paul Dano’s Riddler), and drift towards a downbeat, nebulous conclusion. Instead, we were left perfectly poised at Arkham Asylum, with the shock of a new, Barry Keoghanportrayed Joker’s possible introduction into proceedings. And yet there’s still a sense that this is not a new Batman in any particular rush to stamp his mark on the superhero genre.
So impressive has Reeves’ worldbuilding been that whenever The Batman Part II (as it is currently titled) arrives, it will not be judged just as the next comic book movie to hit multiplexes, feted by fanboys and criticised by cineastes in equal measure, but as a genuine work of cinema in its own right. Somehow, by delivering a film that makes no effort whatsoever to follow the well-trodden superhero path, the American film-maker has shifted into a completely different stream from any other movie in the genre, be it DC, Marvel or anything else for that matter.What that means is that despite all of the current uncertainty surrounding the superhero genre, with a new James Gunn-led regime in place at DC, and Marvel’s current travails, Reeves is in the clear. Why worry that you might have missed the zeitgeist, when you were never trying to get involved in the first place? Why concern oneself with the shifting winds of fashion, when you are operating in your own sweet, airlessly gothic echo chamber?Reeves’ only concern here may be that repeating the trick is nigh-on impossible. Delivering one Batman movie in which very little happens and nobody really minds – because the whole thing is so deliciously Gothamy and Robert Pattinson looks fabulous as Bruce Wayne – is one thing, but presumably at some point there is going to be a bit more clamour for comic book fireworks, action set-pieces and that sort of thing. Surely the entire score of the next movie cannot just riff off another Nirvana song for the best part of three hours? (Though if it does, please can they go for Come as You Are or Heart-Shaped Box?)
Still, with Keoghan’s Joker lined up to present our fledgling caped crusader with his greatest challenge yet, and the aftershocks of Colin Farrell’s Penguin TV show (due late this year on HBO Max) presumably still echoing through the darkling ether, the prospect is tantalising, even if we do have to wait a little longer for it. If the naysayers are right, and superhero movies are on their way out, The Batman’s next instalment could be remembered as the latearriving film that bucked the trend, a Silverado or Unforgiven for the comic book genre. If they are wrong, and this is just the beginning of a segue into new frontiers, Reeves’ next movie could easily help carve out a way through the darkness.