Barry Keoghan’s Joker might get the last laugh The Batman trilogy. After the Eternals And Salt burn actor made a cameo in 2022 The Batman film – and a five-minute deleted scene that was eventually released online – director Matt Reeves insisted the brief cameo wasn’t setting up The Batman Part II. “The idea was more to say, ‘If you think the problems in Gotham are going to go away, you can forget about it. It’s already here,” Reeves said of inmate Riddler’s (Paul Dano) budding relationship with his fellow Arkham inmate already captured by the Dark Knight (Robert Pattinson).

“It’s not an Easter egg scene,” Reeves explained in a 2022 interview. “It’s not one of those Marvel or DC credits scenes where it’s like, ‘Hey, here’s the next movie!’ In fact, I have no idea when or if we would return to that character in the films.

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According to a report from Derek Faraci on the Marvelvision podcast, the Joker is not here The Batman Part IIbut will instead be the main villain The Batman Part III. The report claims that Keoghan will first appear in a spin-off series such as The penguinbut it’s unclear whether that will be a Joker series or one featuring the Batman villain.

In the way Penguin forms the bridge between The Batman And The Batman Part IIAccording to rumors, this series would connect the next two films in what Reeves calls The Batman Epic Crime Saga. /Film confirmed the rumors.

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Reeves was developing the future together with producer Dylan Clark Batman spin-off series set within the Gotham City Police Department and Arkham Asylum, which ultimately did not progress. It’s possible that the Arkham series has been reworked to focus on Keoghan’s Joker after the success of HBO’s The penguinwhich follows the rise of Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell) to power in the aftermath of The Batman movie.

“The streaming cable space was a no-brainer for some of the bigger characters. Casey (Bloys, HBO CEO) was the first person to say, ‘I need a big character,'” Clark told ComicBook about the decision to adapt Farrell’s Penguin into his own series. “And Matt said, ‘I’ve got a really good idea for Colin for the second movie.’ And Casey said, “I want that.” You can’t just have these characters appear in the movie room. So it was a natural transition that way, and I think we have some great ideas to explore more characters from our film world and do the same with Casey and Sarah (Aubrey, Max’s head of original programming).

The Joker is such a big character, as is Zoë Kravitz’s Catwoman. Clark previously revealed that the network is developing an as-yet-unrevealed television series set in the world of… The Batman.

Warner Bros. Pictures are dated The Batman Part II before October 2, 2026.