The Batman Part II is shrouded in secrecy, no great surprise when DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn has claimed that only a handful of people have read Matt Reeves and Mattson Tomlin's screenplay.
Reeves hit the red carpet during Sunday's Emmys and refused to give anything away about the upcoming sequel. He did, however, share a window for when shooting starts and revealed the intense level of secrecy surrounding the script itself.
In fact, it was delivered to lead star Robert Pattinson under lock and key!
"We start shooting [the film] in spring, probably around the end of April or beginning of May," Reeves told Variety. "It’s been a long journey, but I am so incredibly excited. I’m really proud of the script me and Mattson [Tomlin] did, and we’ve started to share it with Robert [Pattinson]."
"Rob was super excited, I feel really excited about the idea that it’s gonna be, that we feel like we can reach farther and do even more than we did in the first one," he said of the movie's scale. "And, I’m really excited to get back together with everybody that we made the movie with, and, it’s gonna be fun."
"We put [the script] into a secret pouch that literally has a lock on it with a code. [Pattinson] was in New York at the time, and everything is high security. We really trust Rob, because he’s the best," Reeves added.
There are numerous theories about who The Batman Part II's villain will be, including Hush and Barry Keoghan's grotesque version of the Joker. However, as Reeves explained in a separate conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, he's doing his utmost to make sure spoilers don't leak in advance.
"Obviously, because of what the first movie was and what this movie is, which is so much a detective story, the idea of trying to protect the secrets of the movie is super important because it’s a mystery," Reeves noted. "It would be an extra level of heartbreak if that part of it started getting out."
Back to that original interview, and Reeves reiterated other recent comments about The Penguin potentially receiving a second season on HBO following its 24 Emmy nominations.
"We’re in discussions. [Showrunner] Lauren [Lefranc] is thinking hard and we’re talking, so we’ll see. We love the show, and we think our cast is so incredible," he stated. "The work that Lauren and the writers did was incredible. Our passion was in it, but never in our wildest dreams could we imagine it would have been received in the way that it was."
Despite speculation that The Batman sequel would be scrapped so that DC Studios could focus on the DCU-set The Brave and the Bold, Reeves' Bat-Verse is going nowhere. Eventually, that means we will end up with two competing versions of the Dark Knight on screen simultaneously.
Batman remains an immensely popular character, but it's hard to shake the feeling that there will be some confusion from casual fans and regular moviegoers about why David Corenswet's Superman isn't sharing the screen with Pattinson's Caped Crusader.
The Batman Part II is set to be released in theaters on October 1, 2027.