The Batman 2: Matt Reeves Needs to be Cautious With His Next Rumored Villain as Fans Believe He Won’t Fit in Robert Pattinson’s Gritty World

Batman has been a superhero without superpowers who has faced every type of supervillain. Majorly, there have been two types of Batman villains: one who are humans that are criminals like Joker and Riddler, and the other ones are superbeings like Doomsday and the Darkseid. 

Over the years, there have been many adaptations of Batman and its supervillains as well. The previous portrayal of Batman by Ben Affleck had every villain as a superbeing. But Matt Reeves completely changed that and brought The Batman to grounded reality. However, some recent speculations suggest it might end soon.

The Batman 2 Might Bring Mr. Freeze

Matt Revees‘ The Batman was released in 2022, and its plot was set in 2019. Reeves’ was clear in his vision to show a dark and gritty Gotham whose crimes and criminals should feel like real-life criminals people know about.

Even Robert Pattinson‘s Batman was written and designed to feel believable. He was not perfect, still learning, and his technology was also not highly advanced like the ones fans had witnessed earlier. Pattinson’s Batman had to wear a wingsuit separately to jump from a high-rise building, whereas in the earlier adaptations, the cape did all the work. 

The villain Riddler, played by Paul Dano, was also wisely chosen to keep the story as real and grounded as possible. However, in a recent conversation with Collider, Reeves revealed that The Batman 2 will take place after the events of The Penguin spin-off, whose plot will pick up after a week of the events of The Batman. 

The story plays out over the next weeks that take you toward the end of the year. We don’t play Christmas or New Years, but we’re getting there.

As the events of The Batman 2 will start after The Penguin series, it is expected that the story will take place in peak Gotham winters. Along with that, the blue theme for the marketing of the film added to the speculation of many fans that Mr. Freeze might be the villain of the sequel.

However, it also challenges the grounded reality of The Batman, which is worrying many fans about whether the movie will stay true to its continuity or not.

Mr. Freeze wouldn't fit for The Batman universe unless they changed him a lot and made him super grounded. I want them to do Hush or Scarecrow. I think Hush is more likely given the narrative of the first one

— Mattlander (@MattoChatto) September 13, 2024

Gotham being flooded and nearly winter time, a snowstorm could hit the City that's a good environment for Mr Freeze. But doing in a grounded way not sure how they could do it? Would like to see how it can be a possibility.

— Neil J Price (@pricen538) September 13, 2024

I don't think a villain like Mr. Freeze would ever be in The Batman. His whole thing is that he shoots people with a freeze ray lol. This is a grounded crime Saga about corruption in Gotham. Freeze is too fantastical of a character to fit in.

— Basco (@BaskoTaJolokia) September 13, 2024

I don’t know how you would make a grounded version of Freeze the way that Reeves would want to it.

— Jeff Brainard (@JayBrainsy) September 13, 2024

i believe that Freeze is sth like a “fantastical” villain, not a street level as Reeves is trying to use in the films

maybe is better to introduce Hush, and the last third episode with the Court of Owls

— Fabio (waiting for Zielu) (@fabiolittera) September 14, 2024

Mr. Freeze’s backstory is way more sci-fi than what is expected from Reeves’ world. Dr. Victor Fries is a cryogenics scientist who had an accident during an experiment and needs sub-zero temperatures to survive. He has the power of thermokinesis and also has a cryo-tech suit that gives him strength and durability. 

All these powers and abilities will make Mr. Freeze unfit for The Batman 2 unless Reeves finds a way to change its origin and alter its powers to fit the grounded nature of the film. 

Other Villains That Might Feature in The Batman 2

In an earlier conversation with Collider, Reeves mentioned Mr. Freeze and how it might be possible to use him with some changes, focusing more on his grounded story rather than the fantastical ones. He said,

In my view, I just feel drawn to finding the grounded version of everything. So to me it would be a challenge in an interesting way to try and figure out how that could happen, even the idea of something like Mr. Freeze, that such a great story, right? I think there’s actually a grounded version of that story, which could be really powerful and could be really great.

However, apart from Mr. Freeze, there are some other Batman villains who won’t need much change in their character to fit Reeves’ vision. One example is Professor Pyg, who is a mad surgeon who kidnaps Gotham’s citizens performs brain surgeries, and gives drugs to make them his followers.

Other than him, Scarecrow can be another option. Jonathan Crane is a psychiatrist who uses psychoactive drugs and fear gas that causes hallucinations and shows the worst fear of its victims. Furthermore, it might also be the Penguin himself, as his spin-off series will lead to the events of The Batman 2.

The Batman 2 will be released in theaters on October 2, 2026.

The Penguin series will premiere on HBO on September 19, 2024.