The Batman Writer Reflects on Getting No Screenwriting Credit, But Returning for Sequel

The challenges of Hollywood credits didn't prevent Mattson Tomlin for coming back for more Batman.

By Russ Burlingame

Mattson Tomlin, who helped contribute to the screenplay for Matt Reeves's The Batman, will return for the movie's sequel -- and will get a screenwriting credit for it this time around. When The Batman was in production, Tomlin was called in to help out...but due to the strict rules surrounding who gets credit and for what on a screenplay, his name was cut out. This is not an uncommon issue facing writers -- especially those who come in late, or who are hired to do rewrites -- but Tomlin, who identifies himself as a huge Batman fan, was never the less pretty disappointed by it, and suggested that part of him wishes the world hadn't already found out he was working on it.

Nevertheless, in addition to writing the movie's sequel -- and starting at the beginning, where he can get a credit -- Tomlin is also making a name for himself on Terminator Zero. He looked back on the journey to this point in a recent interview with THR.

"It was a painful thing to have happen," Tomlin admitted. "I put a lot of time and a lot of heart in. I had a really, really great time working with Matt on that first movie. And when I got brought in, it was kind of said, 'Look, we're so late in this process that you're probably not going to get credit.' So nobody did anything to me. I wasn't screwed over."

He explained that during the course of the project, eventually he ended up contributing enough that he thought there was a possibility he could get an official credit, but those hopes were dashed when the movie's first trailer -- released as part of DC's Fandome presentation in 2020 -- was released, and the credits at the end didn't include him.

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"The day that the movie came out, [Matt Reeves] and I talked on the phone for an hour or two, and he was just talking about the process of making the movie, and I think just kind of processing the experience that he had had," Tomlin said. "And I had an impulse to go like, 'OK, but are you going to ask me to do the sequel?' And I didn't go there. Instead, it became very clear to me, he just wants to talk about what he's just been through. So just be a good dude, be a good friend, celebrate that he still treating me like it's something that I was a part of, because I was. And so just enjoy that. And it was about six weeks later that he called me and said, 'So, sequel time. You want to do this all the way this time?'"

The Batman Part II is coming to theaters on October 2, 2026.

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