James Gunn Wants You to Chill About The Batman Part II’s Delay

On Friday, WB revealed it was shuffling around some of its movies, primarily The Batman’s sequel. Matt Reeves’ sequel was originally meant to hit on October 2, 2026 is now arriving October 1, 2027. And fans are taking it…not well.

Since news of The Batman Part II’s delay, social media’s been filled with jokes and concerns about what the heck is going on. Why’s it taking five years to do a movie, is the entire TBECS enterprise washed—folks just want some answers. On Threads, James Gunn explained the film’s script hadn’t been completed, and that director/co-writer Matt Reeves was “committed to making the best film he possibly can.” He further argued it’s “fairly common” for a franchise to have five or more years between installments, and cited several as proof: Incredibles (14 years), the first two Alien films (7 years), Avatar (13 years), and even his own Guardians of the Galaxy (6 years, albeit not by choice).

It didn’t take long for commenters to hone in on that and argue there’ve been other franchises with less time between installments: your Marvel movies, your Star Wars (at least, originally), and so on. Still, Gunn’s overall point is basically, “yeah, there’s a delay, just relax.” It’s easier asked than done, especially given some additional context: Reeves’ first Batman was originally meant to hit in June 2021, and got pushed back twice due to COVID. This news also comes not long after Sony announced the directors for Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, which would’ve been out this year, and is coming in…TBD. What’s more, Andy Muschietti, director of the other major Batman movie, the previously-announced Brave & the Bold, recently indicated that was put on the backburner for undisclosed reasons. For fans ready to gobble up any information on these movies, not knowing anything about Spider-Verse or either Batflick—and not knowing when they’ll know—pisses them off.

Unfortunately for them, they’ll just have to deal. The Batman Part II‘s not the only superhero movie to get delayed, and several blockbusters have used that long wait between sequels to their advantage. (Case in point: the way the internet lit up for the trailer to the first Superman movie in over a decade.) Corny as it is to say “let Reeves cook,” that’s really all we can do. There’ll be other movies out between now and October 2027. And if you need your fix of Robert Pattinson being a weirdo, you’ve got Mickey 17 hitting in March.

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