The Batman: Part II Cast Picks Up Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Bryan Tyree Henry and More

We’re still a ways away from seeing The Batman: Part II. Director Matt Reeves' hotly-anticipated sequel to The Batman—an icon-rebooting three-hour epic featuring a noir sensibility, a lot of Nirvana music, and a bold, brooding performance by Robert Pattinson as an emo-hardcore incarnation of the Caped Crusader—isn't set to bow until October 1, 2027.But as production ramps up, Reeves took to Twitter to run back his casting gimmick from 2019, where he slowly debuted each cast member in the form of a GIF. It’s like the Avengers: Doomsday chairs livestream, only less arduous.Outside of the new and returning cast, details on Part II are still pretty thin. We know from some camera tests and from the end of the first film that the sequel will be set during a Gotham winter. Otherwise, Reeves is keeping the plot more secure than the Joker at Arkham. (Perhaps that’s a poor analogy considering how routinely the Joker seems to escape, but you get the point.)One key cast member from The Batman who wasn't mentioned in Reeves' first wave of The Batman Part II cast announcements is Zoë Kravitz, whose Catwoman was seen literally riding off into the sunset at the end of the previous film. There's no official word on her involvement, but Kravitz, who'll be seen later this year alongside Nicholas Hoult in David Leitch's How to Rob a Bank, isn't expected to return for The Batman Part II.And while Barry Keoghan's cameo as the Joker in the first film certainly seemed to be setting up a bigger role in a potential sequel, the Saltburn star—lately going full Ringo for Sam Mendes' forthcoming quartet of Beatles biopics—did not get a Matt Reeves shout-out, at least not yet. Which doesn't mean we won't see him—if you recall, Reeves managed to keep Keoghan's first Joker appearance a secret, too, at least for a while.Here’s what we do know about who’s in Reeves’ The Batman: Part II cast and what they're likely to be up to in Gotham when the second The Batman film finally graces screens worldwide in 2027.Robert PattinsonBattison is back. A box office double threat in this year's The Odyssey and Dune: Part Three, he'll return next fall as Batman—excuse us, The Batman, this time with a bit more experience under his belt after surviving The Riddler’s attack and saving Gotham City. We’re curious to see how much deeper Reeves plans to take us into Bruce Wayne’s past, which was one of the more interesting wrinkles of the first film. Paternal relationships appear to be one of this movie’s chief concerrns; more on that shortly.Jeffrey WrightOne of the most entertaining parts of The Batman was the interplay between Batman and Jim Gordon, brought to life by the always-great-in-everything Jeffrey Wright. Lieutenant Gordon might be up for a promotion after the events of the first film, but either way, it’ll be good to have him back in the mix helping Batman help Gotham.Andy SerkisSerkis had some scheduling issues to sort through before he could return for Part II as Alfred, Bruce's caretaker and right-hand man. The actor is in the midst of prepping and directing his Lord of the Rings prequel, but stated that he’ll join the Gotham City crew toward the end of this year. He also stated on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that the sequel is "deeper, darker, and more emotional" than the first installment. Bruce and Alfred's relationship is key to the Batman mythos, andColin FarrellIn the four years since The Batman, the Gotham fixture we've spent the most time with is Colin Farrell's Oz Cobb, aka The Penguin. If you somehow missed the HBO spin-off series featuring the character—well, spoiler alert, but it concludes with Oz taking the reins as the new don of Gotham's underworld. Farrell has also hailed Reeves’ script, calling it “...a contemporary genre masterwork.” Considering Oz’s new position of power, it feels inevitable that the Bat and the Bird will come into opposition once again.Jayme LawsonLawson will return as Mayor-elect Bella Reál, whose survival at the end of The Batman was hailed as a turning point in the city’s struggle to free itself from criminality and corruption. Now that we've all seen what Lawson's capable of thanks to her magnetic performance as Pearline in Sinners, here's hoping she'll get an even more meaningful arc in her second go-round.Gil Perez-AbrahamReeves went out of his way to confirm the return of Gil Perez-Abraham as Officer Martinez. The beat cop has an extreme distrust of Batman — and has become the basis of The Batman meme account on Twitter. Nice to see Reeves getting a little cheeky with these announcements.Scarlett JohanssonOkay, here come the new folks. Deadline broke the news last December that Johansson was circling the project. But her official confirmation is a real holy shit this movie’s not playing around moment, both for the true gravitas and presence we all know Johansson's more than capable of bringing to a film like this one, and for the fact that she’s one of two longtime MCU actors jumping to the other side of the aisle. Some initial speculation posited she’d end up playing Andrea Beaumont, aka Phantasm, from Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, a 1993 animated movie that none other than Robert Pattinson has called one of the only Batman films to “capture the inner bubbling of the character.” But the leading rumor right now is that she's playing Gilda Dent, wife of Gotham district attorney Harvey Dent.In the comics, Gilda plays a critical role in Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s limited series The Long Halloween, in which Batman, Commissioner Gordon and Dent hunt a serial killer named Holiday whose systematic killings of Gotham gangsters are timed to and correlated with holidays on the calendar. Reeves has stated that the villain for Part II has “never really been done in a movie before,” and Holiday would certainly fit the bill, especially for a movie whose opening weekend falls at the beginning of spooky season 2027.Sebastian StanAfter months of speculation, Reeves confirmed that Stan, an MCU stalwart since 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger, will join The Batman Part II cast. Conventional wisdom is that Stan is going to play Harvey Dent. As Gotham seeks to purge itself of criminal activity, it makes sense that Reeves would bring in Dent to play up the legal side of things. It’s unclear if the film will see Stan’s version of Dent transform into Two-Face, but it’d actually be more interesting to go the route of The Long Halloween, which ends up being a Two-Face origin story but features Dent joining Gordon as a critical ally to Batman for a long while before he becomes the Caped Crusader’s famed foe. Either way, this is another interesting career swerve for Stan, who seems committed to balancing roles in big franchise movies with exciting indie swings like A Different Man or Fjord, the latter of which is about to debut at the Cannes Film Festival.Charles DanceThe worst father in all of Westeros will soon be the worst father in all of Gotham. Charles Dance is likely playing Christopher Dent. In the comics, Harvey’s dear old dad was an abusive drunk who used to flip a coin to determine whether or not he’d beat his son. Heads, Harvey got it, tails, he didn’t — only it’s revealed Christopher had a double-sided heads coin, meaning he’d never escape. That trauma eventually became part of the foundation for Harvey's Two-Face persona. Considering how Reeves explored the relationship between Bruce and his father in the first film, we’re likely to see the other side of the coin — pun intended—in this one.Sebastian KochKoch is one of two previously-unrumored additions. You may have seen the German actor in Bridge of Spies or in the fifth season of Homeland. Koch might make for a good screen version of Hugo Strange, the Gotham psychologist obsessed with determining Batman’s identity. If Batman is Sherlock Holmes, think of Strange as his Moriarty, someone who is capable of matching the Caped Crusader’s intellect — which would be a nice way of carrying forward the more investigative approach Reeves took to the Dark Knight Detective the first film.Brian Tyree HenryThe biggest surprise of Reeves’ cast rollout was the involvement of Atlanta star Brian Tyree Henry. We don’t know yet who Henry will be playing, and honestly I’m at a loss. The timeline seems to like him as Gotham City police detective Harvey Bullock; he feels like too big a get for that role, but he’s also an actor who can make a movie turn on a dime. Fittingly, Reeves announced his casting with a gif from If Beale Street Could Talk, in which he does just that with only twelve minutes of screen time. As always, Henry is an inspired choice, and there’s no way this project won’t fare better than the last comic-book ensemble movie Henry boarded.