If you haven’t heard, I have some bad news for you: The Batman Part II is being delayed all the way to October 2027, a full year. This is heartbreaking news for me personally, and I’m sure many fans of The Batman feel the same way.
Interestingly, on the same day as The Batman Part II’s delay into 2027, Andy Muschietti gave us the first actual update on The Brave and the Bold since it was announced that he was directing it. On the California Secreta Podcast, Muschietti had the following to say:
"The Batman [The Brave and The Bold] project has been postponed a little bit so I might do another film before that."
What an odd coincidence that, on the same day The Batman Part II is delayed, Andy Muschietti essentially confirms that The Brave and the Bold has also been delayed. The latter had no official release date or even a script for all we know, but it seems as if Andy Muschietti has no intention of starting work for The Brave and the Bold any time soon.
On top of that, the Hollywood Reporter also states here that The Batman Part II is not even called The Batman Part II any longer. All in one day, The Batman Part II was delayed a year, it lost its title, and The Brave and the Bold is essentially getting a delay as well. Sure, there are other possible reasons that The Batman Part II could lose its title, but it certainly could be hinting at a title that fits better within the DCU.
Comments from James Gunn on Threads in the past have confirmed that there is no completed script for what used to be called The Batman Part II, but that parts of the script are done. Gunn was also asked if he considered integrating The Batman into the DCU, but did not directly say it was or wasn’t happening:
"I've contemplated it, yeah. I contemplate everything and talk about everything. I'm committed to both telling stories in the DCU and telling Elseworlds stories. We want to be able to tell a story where Superman is very different or tell a Red Sun story or whatever. We want to be able to play with these characters in different ways."
Gunn seemed to be committed to Elseworlds stories then, but it would make financial sense for Gunn and Safran to capitalize on a franchise that has already seen commercial success. The Batman earned 770 million dollars at the box office which is better than every single DC movie to come out since then. In 2022, the only other DC movie to come out was Black Adam which didn’t even break 400 million. In 2023, Blue Beetle only made 131 million, The Flash only made 271 million, Shazam! Fury of the Gods made only 134 million, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom made about 440 million. That means the box office total for DC in 2023 was only 976 million. In 2024, Joker Folie a Deux, the only DC movie to release this year, made only 206 million. Nearly every movie I’ve listed has lost Warner Brothers Discovery money. Let’s not forget, while James Gunn and Peter Safran are in charge of DC, they still answer to CEO David Zaslav who was hired to fix WBD’s draining of cash. Financially, it makes sense to incorporate The Batman into the DCU.
Another hint that The Batman is being integrated into the DCU is the release date for Clayface and who is attached to the project. The film is scheduled to release on September 11, 2026, meaning it would have come out within a few weeks of The Batman Part II. This seemed like a very odd choice at the time, but if this delay has been considered for a while, it makes much more sense. If the delay was being considered for quite some time, while many rumors circulated about The Batman becoming part of the DCU, that could be the explanation. On top of that, Matt Reeves is producing Clayface. It could easily be that Matt Reeves is interested in the film and simply a good director, therefore he was hired as a producer, but it’s equally possible that he will be attached to all things Batman moving forward. If Robert Pattinson is joining the DCU as the main Batman, this would make sense.
Ultimately, I hope this doesn’t happen, which I wrote about here, and we live in a world where we can be blessed with two Batman franchises at once.
The lack of news for The Brave and the Bold and delays for The Batman Part II could very easily be explained by Reeves giving his universe to Gunn. However, this would require abandoning the entire concept behind The Brave and the Bold.
Maybe I’m grasping at straws, but there’s a lot hinting at this integration becoming reality.
What do you think? Will The Batman be integrated into the DCU? Let me know!