Matt Reeves' The Batman Part 2 has dealt with its fair share of delays. But there's no reason to believe a few behind-the-scenes roadblocks will negatively affect the final product. After all, the proof is in the pudding: Reeves has assembled a cast that rivals the one Christopher Nolan used in The Dark Knight Trilogy. And adding fuel to the fire is a photo that sheds plenty of light on The Batman Part 2's villains and confirms that a 30-year-old Batman movie trend isn't going anywhere.
Television icon Heidi Klum recently made waves with her severed-hand Halloween costume, put together by Prosthetic Renaissance. Wanting to show off its handiwork, the makeup company posted pictures on social media, including one that showed other projects in the background. The name Zsasz on a label and a mold of Brian Tyree Henry's face, which has seen better days, made it clear that Prosthetic Renaissance is lending Reeves and Co. a hand.
Rumors have been swirling for months about the identities of Henry and Sebastian Stan's characters in The Batman Part 2. Initially, all signs pointed to Stan playing Harvey Dent, who would eventually fall from grace and become the villain Two-Face. But Henry's face, looking worse for wear, appears to confirm that he's the one who nabbed a seat in the district attorney's office.
Stan isn't left without a chair of his own, though. When he shaved his head ahead of filming, the odds of him playing Two-Face went down, but the odds of him playing the serial killer Victor Zsasz went up. In the comics, Zsasz has a clean-shaven head during his murder sprees in Gotham.
It's only a matter of time before DC Studios peels back the curtain on The Batman Part 2 and puts all the speculation to bed. However, the characters the actors are playing matter less than the fact that the Batman movie features multiple villains.
The first major Dark Knight film, 1989's Batman, directed by Tim Burton, pitted the titular hero against his arch-enemy, The Joker. After that movie came and went, though, things changed for the Caped Crusader on the big screen.
Starting with Batman Returns in 1992, which featured both Catwoman and the Penguin, every live-action movie the DC hero has headlined has featured multiple main villains. Nolan threw the kitchen sink at his version of Bruce Wayne in each of his three films, whether it was Ra's al Ghul and Scarecrow in Batman Begins or Bane and Talia al Ghul in The Dark Knight Rises.
Even Reeves kept the strike alive with The Batman. In addition to Riddler, who launched a crusade to expose Gotham's elites, Robert Pattinson's Dark Knight had to deal with Carmine Falcone and the Penguin as well. Only a few years later, Two-Face and Zsasz will look to fill their predecessors' shoes in The Batman Part 2. And that's not even mentioning the Court of Owls, which was also teased in the Prosthetic Renaissance images.
Clearly, Reeves isn't worried about overstuffing his latest superhero flick. Maybe that's because he's setting up a return to basics for the final entry in his trilogy.
The Batman Part 3 Might Take a Page Out of Tim Burton's Book
While the cast of The Batman Part 2 is stacked, it doesn't feel complete. Of course, at the end of The Batman, Riddler ended up in jail, where he interacted with another inmate, Joker, played by Barry Keoghan. Most superhero franchises waste no time putting a villain they spent time setting up into the spotlight; Nolan famously did it with the Clown Prince of Crime in The Dark Knight after teasing him in Batman Begins. However, Reeves is walking to the beat of his own drum.
Keoghan seemingly has to wait until The Batman Part 3 to wreak havoc on Gotham. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. If The Batman Part 2 gets all these other villains out of the way, the titular hero will have no choice but to give Joker all his attention, just like he did in 1989. That sets the stage for an epic conflict that could put a final bow on Reeves' Bat-Verse.
DC Studios is going to properly introduce the DCU's Batman sooner rather than later. And he'll get to brush shoulders with Superman and the rest of the Justice League. Reeves' version won't have that advantage. But delivering a memorable final villain for him all but ensures he goes down as one of, if not the, best live-action iterations of the hero.
