The Batman has only been out in cinemas for one month but Robert Pattinson’s second outing as the caped crusader has already been confirmed. 

Warner Bros. revealed the exciting news at its CinemaCon presentation, the annual trade show for theatre owners, as per Variety. They even brought The Batman director Matt Reeves along to get everyone hyped by the announcement. It was confirmed that Reeves will write and direct the sequel, although no further details about the film’s plot were revealed.

A sequel was always an inevitability after the commercial success of The Batman: the latest Gotham-set film earned the biggest opening weekend of the year when it debuted last month, and is only the second pandemic-era film to cross the $100 million mark in a single weekend (following Spider-Man: No Way Home). At the time of writing it’s banked $759 million at the global box office, making it the current highest grossing film of 2022.

Critical reaction was also mostly positive. “This grounded, frequently brutal and nearly three-hour film noir registers among the best of the genre, even if — or more aptly, because — what makes the film so great is its willingness to dismantle and interrogate the very concept of superheroes,” Variety wrote. “Pattinson is appealingly conflicted, and Zoë Kravitz’s Catwoman adds bite, but Matt Reeves’s noirish reboot underwhelms,” The Observer wrote in a three-star review.

There were other big announcements at CinemaCon. The first look at Margot Robbie as Barbie was unveiled, with the release date for Greta Gerwig’s intriguing live-action adventure film confirmed for July 21st, 2023. The first-look image shows Robbie in Barbie’s iconic pink convertible, sporting a blue polka dot headband as she smiles behind the wheel.

The Australian actress discussed her excitement about taking on the role last year, noting that it “comes with a lot of baggage… and a lot of nostalgic connections. But with that comes a lot of exciting ways to attack it. People generally hear ‘Barbie’ and think, ‘I know what that movie is going to be,’ and then they hear that Greta Gerwig is writing and directing it, and they’re like, ‘Oh, well, maybe I don’t.'”

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