Posted in: Batman, Movies, Warner Bros | Tagged: the batman, The Batman Part II

The Batman Part II: James Gunn Says Calm Down About The Delay

James Gunn would like you to calm down about the delay. Also, you'll never guess how long it took Matt Reeves to finish The Batman.

Apparently, everyone is jumping at shadows right now, and it's time to calm down. Yesterday, Warner Bros. delayed The Batman Part II another year, from October 2026 to October 2027. This shouldn't have surprised anyone who has been paying attention to the people making this film. James Gunn and Matt Reeves have gone on the record in the last couple of weeks that the script is not done yet. Gunn specifically said the "first draft" isn't done as of December 13th, when the Clayface announcement was made official. However, the internet decided that this was the end of the world and the film was never going to see the light of day. Gunn took to Threads to basically tell all of you to calm the hell down because a five-year gap between films isn't even that long.

"To be fair, a 5 year gap or more is fairly common in sequels," Gunn wrote in a post on December 27th. "7 years between Alien and Aliens. 14 years between Incredibles. 7 years between the first two Terminators. 13 years between Avatars. 36 years between Top Guns. And, of course, 6 years between Guardians Vol 2 and Vol 3."

The Batman was in development for almost a decade before it made its way to the big screen. The first version of the film was announced in 2013 when Ben Affleck signed on as Bruce Wayne. The film hung around in development hell for a couple of years until Affleck, at this time we weren't aware of suffering from addiction issues and trying to stay sober, stepped away from directing the film in January 2017. Reeves was hired on to direct in late February of that year. By early 2019, Affleck had stepped down from the part, citing many different issues. At this point, we're now two years into Reeves being in control of this project.

Reeves started rewriting the script, and that was how we ended up with the version of The Batman that eventually made its way into theaters. While there were some delays that people couldn't account for, COVID being one of them, the final version of the film would be released in March of 2022, just over five years after Reeves took over directing duties and nine and a half years after the film was first conceptualized. So, if we're using the last film as a guide, Reeves is right on track with his October 2027 release date. Gunn is active on social media, and Reeves hasn't been shy about saying where he is in the writing process either, so it's not like you're being left in the dark. This isn't development hell, guys; this is development purgatory at best.

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