The Batman: Part II Confirms Johansson, Stan and More

Matt Reeves is done keeping secrets. After years of near-silence on The Batman: Part II, the director has spent the last few days turning his X account into a casting announcement machine — and the biggest names he’s dropped so far are Scarlett Johansson and Sebastian Stan.

Reeves kicked things off by posting a moody GIF of Johansson from her 2013 sci-fi thriller Under the Skin, her face reflected in a car’s rearview mirror as shadows fall across her and blurred lights streak past. The caption: “Next exit, Gotham… Welcome.” It’s spare, atmospheric, and very on-brand for the filmmaker who turned Gotham City into a rain-soaked fever dream in 2022. The GIF didn’t name her character, but multiple outlets have confirmed Johansson will play Gilda Dent — wife of District Attorney Harvey Dent and a character with deep roots in Batman lore.

https://x.com/mattreevesLA/status/2054961650416189704

Stan’s welcome came shortly after, with Reeves confirming the Thunderbolts* star is in a “Gotham state of mind.” He’ll play Harvey Dent himself — the idealistic DA whose tragic transformation into the coin-flipping villain Two-Face is one of the most iconic arcs in the Batman universe. The last time we saw Dent on the big screen was Aaron Eckhart’s version in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight back in 2008. Stan’s take promises to be something different.

Speaking to Deadline from the Cannes Film Festival, where he’s promoting his film Fjord, Stan didn’t hold back on his excitement. “It’s going to blow people away. It’s going to surprise a lot of people, I think, too,” he said. He called the film “a really ambitious movie” and a “challenge, like everything else,” adding that working with Reeves has been a long-held dream. “He’s been one of my favorites for a long, long time.”

Who Is Gilda Dent — and Why Does She Matter?

For casual fans, Gilda Dent might be a new name. For comics readers, she’s anything but. In Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s beloved Batman: The Long Halloween — widely considered one of the greatest Batman stories ever told — Gilda is at the center of Harvey’s world as Gotham starts to crumble around him. She watches her husband get pulled deeper into the city’s darkness, and her own role in the story takes a turn that reframes everything. Reeves has mined The Long Halloween before; the first film borrowed its serial-killer-mystery structure directly from that source material. Going deeper into Gilda’s story for the sequel feels like a natural, and potentially devastating, extension of that.

Johansson, who spent over a decade in the MCU as Black Widow, was first reported to be in final negotiations for the role back in December. She was expected to complete work on The Exorcist before heading to the Batman set. Now it’s official.

Charles Dance rounds out the Dent family as Christopher Dent, Harvey’s father — a casting detail that adds another layer of intrigue to what’s shaping up to be a very family-focused sequel.

The Full Cast Is Taking Shape

The day before the Johansson and Stan reveals, Reeves had already been busy — posting GIFs to confirm six returning cast members. Robert Pattinson is back as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Jeffrey Wright returns as Jim Gordon, Andy Serkis is back as Alfred (who took quite the beating in the first film), and Colin Farrell reprises Oz Cobb/The Penguin, fresh off his acclaimed run in HBO’s The Penguin series. Rounding out the returning players are Jayme Lawson as mayor Bella Réal and Gil Perez-Abraham as Officer Martinez — two characters whose returns will have fans of the first film quietly pumped.

Barry Keoghan is also expected to return as The Joker, though Reeves hasn’t officially posted his confirmation yet.

The full confirmed cast now stands at: Robert Pattinson, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Colin Farrell, Andy Serkis, Jeffrey Wright, Charles Dance, Barry Keoghan, Jayme Lawson, and Gil Perez-Abraham. The script, co-written by Reeves and Mattson Tomlin, is being kept tightly under wraps.

What We Know (and What We’re Guessing) About the Story

Plot details are locked down hard, but the casting itself tells a story. Reports suggest the film will center on Batman, Harvey Dent, and Commissioner Gordon forming an uneasy alliance to hunt a serial killer while also taking on Gotham’s entrenched crime families — a structure that draws heavily from The Long Halloween. Two-Face, Hush, a Holiday Killer, and Phantasm have all been floated as potential villains. The film’s working title, “Semper Vigilans,” has also set off speculation about the Court of Owls entering the picture.

Then there’s Pattinson, who told an interviewer earlier this year that the sequel will be a “really different type of Batman movie” — which is saying something, given how different the first one already was. “The script is so good,” he said. “Hopefully, people will be really pleasantly surprised by it.”

Reeves recently confirmed the film has a wintery setting — that snowy Batmobile photo that broke the internet a few weeks ago wasn’t just aesthetic flex — which has some corners of the fandom whispering about Mr. Freeze. Whether that pans out or not, the vibe is clear: Reeves is building something colder, darker, and more complicated than what came before.

Production is now officially underway in London. The Batman: Part II opens in theaters on October 1, 2027. And if Sebastian Stan’s confidence is any indicator, the wait is going to be worth it.