James Gunn Quashed 'The Penguin' Hype for 'The Batman Part 2'

For months now, I’ve been nursing a theory that The Batman Part II is doomed at Warner Bros. However, I gave voice to that theory heading into the premiere of The Penguin, which turned out to be a surprising hit thanks to some ballsy storytelling.

What seemed like an uninspired spinoff became a tidy little success for HBO and WBD. So much so that I was ready to throw in the towel on my theory and hop aboard The Batman Part II hype train. That seems like the next logical move here, right? Use the goodwill from The Penguin to amp people up for more Robert Battinson. Feels like a no-brainer.

Not so much.

In a genuinely strange update that sucked the wind right out of The Penguin’s sails, James Gunn has shot down an Entertainment Weekly report from back in September, where Matt Reeves confirmed the script for The Batman Part II was already finished. Here’s what Gunn said to a fan on Threads who asked if that was true.

“I think that report was well-intentioned but it was mistaken,” Gunn wrote on November 17. “We are very much looking forward to it.”

Yikes.

I’m not here to sh*t on James Gunn. The guy is stuck with the unenviable task of trying to clean up Zack Snyder’s mess that a revolving door of regimes smeared all over the floor, and while launching a brand new cinematic universe that rests on the back of his Superman movie. That said, it is freaking wild that instead of riding the success of The Penguin into The Batman Part II, Gunn’s first move is to damper expectations by saying, actually, we don’t have a script yet despite the source being Matt freaking Reeves. That does not bode well.

As much as I love my little theory that The Batman sequel was never going to see the light of the day to clear the field for Gunn’s new DCU Batman, even I thought The Penguin just secured the return of the Robert Battinverse. And, yet, here we are.