The Batman Part II: Matt Reeves Confirms Penguin’s Return, Teases New Batman Villains

After The Penguin showrunner Lauren LeFranc revealed that the HBO series will be the bridge between The Batman and The Batman Part II, director Matt Reeves confirmed the next chapter in his “Batman Epic Crime Saga” will feature the return of Oswald “Oz” Cobb (Colin Farrell). Along with introducing a Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) in his second year as a costumed crime-fighter, the 2022 reboot pit the Dark Knight detective against proto-rogues Penguin, Riddler (Paul Dano), and Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz), with a cameo appearance by an incarcerated Joker (Barry Keoghan).

In a new interview for the October issue of SFX Magazine, Reeves said “Colin will be part of the movie” and that he’s “finishing up” the script he’s written with Mattson Tomlin. “We’ve shared [the script] as we’ve been going alongwith DC and the studio and they’re super excited,” Reeves said, adding that the Batman sequel is still on track to shoot in early 2025.

As Farrell’s Penguin solidifies his grip on Gotham City’s underworld, going to war with Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti) to fill the power vacuum left by her crime boss father’s death, the eight-episode limited series will set up the next film. The Penguin is the “entry point” into The Batman 2, which is “absolutely connected to where we leave things in the series.”

“There are details that actuallyconnect right into the way the next movie begins, and the way that Ozenters that world as we hand the baton back to Batman, and Batman is onanother case,” Reeves teased. 

Reeves went on to explain that his crime saga spanning films and television series is “a meditation on the way Gotham is the way it is.It’s such a brutal place and we’re digging for the answers as to whythese people’s lives are this way.” 

After The Batman uncovered a conspiracy involving Carmine Falcone (John Turturro)and his link to the Waynes, the sequel is “going to dig into the epic story about deeper corruption, and it goesinto places that he couldn’t anticipate in the first one,” Reeves said. “The seeds ofwhere this goes are all in the first movie, and it expands in a way thatwill show you aspects of the character you never got to see. Batman is constantly battling these forces. But those forces can’t beentirely exorcised. So the next movie delves deeper into that.”

That could suggest the villain may be Hush. Tommy Elliot’s supervillain alter-ego was referenced in the first film when Riddler exposed a hush-money agreement involving the late Thomas Wayne and the gangster, which resulted in the Falcone-ordered murder of Gotham Gazetteinvestigative reporter Edward Elliot. Another rumored Batman villain is Two-Face, who confronts crime and corruption as Gotham City District Attorney Harvey Dent before he’s disfigured by a gangster. (In the comics, it’s Salvatore Maroni, who is referenced in The Batman and will be played by Clancy Brown in The Penguin.) 

One potential villain that can be ruled out is the supernatural terror Gentleman Ghost, who recently appeared in the unconnected Reeves-produced animated series Batman: Caped Crusader.

“What was important to me was to find a way to take these pop icons,these mythical characters that everybody knows, and translate it so thatGotham feels like a place in our world. We might push tothe edge of the fantastical but we would never go into fullfantastical. It’s meant to feel quite grounded,” Reeves said. “It doesn’t mean that you won’t see characters thatpeople love. That’s exactly what we want to do. Gentleman Ghost isprobably pushed a bit too far for us to be able to find a way to do, butthere is a fun way to think about how we would take characters thatmight push over into a bit of the fantastical and find a way to makesense of that.”

The Penguin — which stars Colin Farrell, Cristin Milioti, Rhenzy Feliz, Michael Kelly, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Deirdre O’Connell, Clancy Brown, James Madio, Scott Cohen, MichaelZegen, Carmen Ejogo, and Theo Rossi — premieres Sept. 19th on HBO and Max. The Batman Part II is scheduled to open in theaters October 2nd, 2026.