Colin Farrell’s role in The Batman was minor but significant, allowing for a lead-in to his own self-titled series on HBO Max that saw the low level mobster lie and cheat his way to one of the most revered crime bosses in Gotham. In a new interview with Collider, the actor commented on his next role in The Batman II as the Penguin and his comments indirectly support the already established idea that the second film in Matt Reeves’ caped crusader franchise will be based on the well known Batman graphic novel, The Long Halloween.
Many details that have already been confirmed about the second entry in the Matt Reeves directed and Robert Pattinson led follow up to 2022’s return of Bruce Wayne, The Batman, and point to the film being an adaption of the fan favorite story The Long Halloween. The casting of both Sebastian Stan as Harvey Dent/Two-Face and Scarlett Johansson as the (presumed) wife of the district attorney, Gilda Dent, were giveaways that were revealed late 2025. Stan has already been confirmed to be playing Two-Face, with actor comments seemingly confirming we will see Gotham’s District Attorney turn into the infamous villain by the end of the film, and while Johansson’s role as Gilda has not been confirmed yet her involvement is official and most believe this is the role she will be playing. Without actually spoiling the plot of The Long Halloween, this is almost enough in itself to confirm the storyline will be adapted for the film. In addition, some of the first production images from the set show the Batmobile in the snow, and The Long Halloween takes place over the winter, establishing the season and setting that goes right along with the presumed plot’s source. To be fair, The Dark Knight from Christopher Nolan loosely adapted elements from the graphic novel, but from what fans can tell so far about The Batman Part II, it seems like Reeves might be going all in on adapting the fan favorite story.
Now, to add fuel to the speculative fire, actor Colin Farrell has let it be known to Collider that he will begin filming for the movie soon, but fans should not expect to see a ton of Oswald Cobblepot (or Oz Cobb as he’s more commonly known as this version of the character). In an interview with the news outlet, Farrell confirmed that he will begin filming in just a few weeks:
“The script, I’ve said before, and you know, I said it to you, it’s extraordinary. It really is. Matt is just so brilliant, and he just cares so deeply about the stories he tells. I will go fly to London in four or five weeks. I haven’t got much to do on it, but I’ll go for four or five weeks. I’ll be there for a few weeks. I’m so excited to see it as a fan.”
With that, if you know the plot of The Long Halloween, you know that this tracks for the Penguins minor but significant role in the presumed source material.
In The Long Halloween, Batman goes on a wild mystery goose-chase that involves many minor appearances from villains around Gotham trying to track down a killer that comes out on holidays. In the original story, Batman tracks down the Penguin in hopes of finding out where the stories murderer, the Holiday Killer, is getting their weapons. Penguin does eventually give Batman a lead, but your guess is as good as ours if the lead will be credible or if this is even the route The Batman Part II will go – although it does seem very likely and very on point with his role in the first Batman film as well. Later in the original story, Batman is seen going into Arkham Asylum to question the villain known as the Calendar Man, where the Penguin is seen once again, but behind bars along with other Gotham supervillains. Farrell’s comments seem to line up with this level of role for the film, although nothing has been confirmed yet one way or another. We think that this detail, in addition to the other details we’ve mentioned earlier, bodes very well that the film will in fact be an adaption of The Long Halloween.
Along with the Penguin and the underground crime bosses Carmine Falcone and Sal Maroni, The Long Halloween is host to a slew of recognizable Batman villains – The Joker, Poison Ivy, The Riddler, Scarecrow, the Mad Hatter, and Solomon Grundy to name a new – all make appearances in the source material. It’s heavily speculated that Barry Keoghan’s Joker will be back for the second film, which also leads credence to the idea of The Long Halloween, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see a few more of Batman’s rogues gallery pop up as well, although we’re not expecting to see every villain from the graphic novel ported over to live action so quickly. Although they killed off Falcone in the part one, Sal Maroni is still out there for part two, and will most likely be back as well, because if they do faithfully follow the plot then he will be the cause of Dent’s transformation. If they do end up include the long list of villains that would definitely be cool, but could lead to villain overkill depending on how they decide to go about the inclusions.
For now, we will have to wait for more news to help comment the dots before the film comes out in 2027. In October. The same month as Halloween. Since The Long Halloween only had cherry-picked elements from the story included in The Dark Knight from Christopher Nolan, doing the same storyline wouldn’t even feel very familiar because of how different the rest of Nolan’s take on the plot was. Aside from the trifecta of Batman, James Gordon, and Harvey Dent coming together to take on crime in Gotham (prior to the attack on Dent that changed him into Two-Face), not much else was used for The Dark Knight, making the graphic novel still completely fair game on our opinion. With all the evidence so far, we think that Matt Reeves is trying to subtly let fans know this is the route the film will be taking is they are able to connect the dots themselves (like we are doing right now).
The Batman Part II is currently filming in London and is scheduled for a release date of October 1st, 2027. Are the excited for the second installment in Matt Reeves’ take on Batman? Let us know your thoughts down below or on Instagram!
Source: Collider
