James Gunn explains why Batman 2 got delayed to late 2027

Batman 2 has been delayed yet again, drawing into question whether or not we’ll ever see the film at all. 2026 was already pretty far away, but a release date at the tail end of 2027 makes it hard to imagine this film isn’t having development troubles. James Gunn confirmed that there’s on main reason behind these delays.

The process of making a film is difficult, especially on the scale of a blockbuster like Batman 2. There are a lot of things that can go wrong in the process of filming. But, at the point that a movie gets delayed twice, questions begin getting raised.

Though the first Batman reboot film did exceptionally well both commercially and critically, the sequel is stuck in limbo and won’t be landing until over 5 years after the original film came out.

Batman 2 gets delayed due to script issues

Originally, Batman 2 was supposed to release in October 2025. According to TheWrap, this date got moved to October 2, 2026 due to “stalled script development” as a result of Hollywood strikes in 2023.

If their report is true, that would mean that delays with the film at the time were attributed more to issues in getting the script together, problems that’d arise before much of the required pre-production can even get underway.

Now it has been delayed yet again, all the way out to October 1, 2027. And it’s for the same reason as, the film still doesn’t have a complete script despite having been delayed already for the same reason. James Gunn confirmed as much in a post on Threads.

There is, however, a silver lining. The film getting delayed until the same time each year likely means that Warner Bros. has a very specific time of year in mind for releasing the film. The time at which a movie is released can, at times, be crucial to its success.

However, this news is made even more worrying by the fact that a currently untitled film starring Tom Cruise has been moved into that 2026 time slot. Considering that the initial delay was reportedly due to issues with scripting, there’s cause for concern.

All that said, Batman 2 is set to start shooting in late 2025 at the time of writing, close to when the film was set to originally release. Fortunately, it’s not all doom and gloom for the DC universe, as the Superman trailer just beat the viewership record held by the original Batman’s teaser trailer.