In another life, we’d all be talking about The Batman Part II this weekend. The sequel to Matt Reeves’ 2022 hit was first meant for October 3, 2025, only to be repeatedly put off by the Hollywood strikes and other woes. It’s now coming October 1, 2027, and whether it lands that release date or not, fans are waiting with bated breath to learn anything they can about the film. Will it introduce Robin? Are the Court of Owls the villain, or is it Mr. Freeze? Will the powers that be make Robert Pattinson the Batman of the newly launched DC Universe?
Demand for answers escalated to the point DC boss James Gunn has played defense for Reeves a handful of times, at one point telling people to leave the man alone as he works on the script.
Rampant speculation and anticipation have always been part of fandoms, particularly for superheroes. But it’s safe to say it’s grown into a larger beast over the years thanks to leaks and rumors from scoopers implying or outright stating what they’ve learned on social media, rarely with anyone official pushing back on what’s going out and being shared by those eager to hear any and everything related to their favorite thing.
Some discoveries end up being true, others wildly incorrect. Either way, they do their job keeping something in the conversation when the official channels aren’t doing what some would consider their due diligence and providing a frequent stream of updates. Any silence that lasts longer than a couple of days is a sign that the upcoming project is washed and its creators have lost their spark or that it’s been quietly canceled.
There’s no point in pretending The Batman Part II or Insomniac’s Wolverine game—which similarly went without years of any news before being officially unveiled in late September, following the studio being hacked in 2024—would face quiet ends. WB and Sony are loud companies, and if something of that stature had been gutted, we’d have known about it by now.
But the fear of them going away exists thanks to both companies (and plenty more) killing off projects like Batgirl, Naughty Dog’s multiplayer-focused Last of Us spinoff, and too many more to count. Depending on who you ask, the fear of not knowing something is coming is worse than knowing it’ll never come, as made clear by Hollow Knight: Silksong becoming a meme thanks to its dubious existence from 2018 up until this past August.
After years of what fans would consider a feast of great IP works—and the occasional nibble on decent enough ones—this string of cancellations in recent years has left a sense of resentment and betrayal in their wake. It’s one thing to see Leslie Grace in Batgirl’s Burnside costume and hear that movie was basically done before its untimely end. It’s another to get vague ideas of what a game’s developer is intending or see minutes’ worth of footage at a major showcase, as we saw with Monolith’s Wonder Woman and The Initiative’s Perfect Dark.
Between cancelled movies and games, news of the latter stings so much more thanks to the layoffs that follow in the immediate aftermath and the post-cancellation news revealing development was rough in some shape or form, or the developer’s parent company wasn’t willing to see the project through to the end. All the fan love in the world can work wonders, but it can’t do anything against “market conditions,” crunch, or corporations’ growing interest in AI.
At the end of the 2010s, io9 wrote about how fandoms became gradually intertwined with the corporations that own the IP they love. Five years into the ’20s, and fandoms are now seeing the backlash of that synthesis by being cursed with knowledge. Many fans have taken it upon themselves to know everything about a game, movie, show, or artist and end up spiraling should news not emerge or arrive with potentially worrying implications. They have to know who’s involved with the project from top to bottom and how it’s progressing so they know which creatives to rally support or disdain for, or if they need to, shake those creators back to life if their pulse starts to fade.
The fixation on the things to come, like The Batman Part II and Wolverine, will not end. We’re already seeing this with a TikTok creator’s alleged trip to Scotland to demand Rockstar North give more info, put out a new trailer, and say something about May 2026’s Grand Theft Auto 6: to be a fan of something is to constantly want something, then look forward to the next big thing on the horizon.
In that respect, Reeves and company should take as much time as they need on Batman II—unless something catastrophic happens, it’s not like this epic crime saga is in danger of truly losing its momentum or place in the superhero landscape.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Justin Carter
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