The Batman Part 2 production paused as Matt Reeves steps away — and its 2028 release date was already the fourth one
The sequel was finally shooting in London, its release date had finally stopped moving, and then the cameras stopped too.
If you had "The Batman Part II gets delayed again" on your 2026 bingo card, congrats, but this one is genuinely nobody's fault.
On October 5, 2026, Warner Bros. and DC Studios told Deadline that production on Matt Reeves' sequel is temporarily on hold while Reeves focuses on a family matter. Cameras had been rolling in London since June. In the same statement, the studio said:
"Matt has the full support of DC Studios."
— DC Studios
Sources told Deadline it's too early to say whether the pause will affect the release date. Which brings us to the release date. Sorry, the release dates.
A brief history of "coming soon"
- October 3, 2025. The original plan.
- October 2, 2026. Pushed a full year after the 2023 strikes jammed up Hollywood.
- October 1, 2027. Pushed again. James Gunn, defending that delay, called long gaps before big-budget sequels "fairly common." Sure!
- February 18, 2028. Reeves announced the new date in July 2026, tucked into a video of Robert Pattinson's first camera test back in the suit. It's the four-day Presidents Day weekend, the same slot where Black Panther opened in 2018.
If that date holds, the sequel arrives almost six years after The Batman opened in March 2022. In the meantime, Pattinson has made Mickey 17 and Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey.
The Batman Part II was originally supposed to be in theaters a full year before its production was put on pause.
The studio is also getting new owners
The pause landed one day before Paramount Skydance's takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, DC Studios' parent company, was scheduled to close on October 6. That's a roughly $110 billion deal and a brand-new set of executives who will get a say in when, and whether, the release date moves again. Nobody has said it will. It's also way too early for anyone to promise it won't.
What's waiting on the other side of the pause is not small. Reeves co-wrote the script with Mattson Tomlin. Pattinson is back alongside Colin Farrell, Jeffrey Wright, and Andy Serkis, and the new faces include Scarlett Johansson and Sebastian Stan, in roles nobody will officially name, plus Charles Dance, Brian Tyree Henry, and Sebastian Koch.
And Reeves' Batman still has to share the calendar with the other one. Gunn's DCU is building its own Dark Knight for The Brave and the Bold, and the Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow is due in July 2027, a good seven months before Pattinson's return, assuming February 2028 survives.
