The Batman' Ending Explained: Sequel set to pit the Dark Knight against the Joker
'The Batman' may have ended with Gotham slowly recovering after the Riddler (Paul Dano) decides to flood the city and almost succeeds. It takes Robert Pattinson's Bruce Wayne/Batman, Selina Kyle/Catwoman (Zoe Kravitz), and Jeffrey Wright's Jim Gordon to save the city not just from the scum, but also the deranged villains including Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) and Penguin (Colin Farrell). Jumping right into the climax, the Riddler is apprehended and thrown into Arkham Asylum from where he witnesses his plan come to a bittersweet end.
However, setting up the sequel is the Bat's archnemesis. The Joker may have hidden his face, but his eerie laughter is on full display as he shares what is a hopeful message to the distraught Riddler. His grand scheme to flood Gotham fails and so does the attempt to assassinate the leaders. It takes some spunk and grit from Batman to thwart his plans, but while he saves the city at one end, evil has already begun forming at the other. Played by Barry Keoghan, the Joker is revealed to be Riddler's neighbor in a cell next to him.
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'The Batman' Ending Explained: Will the sequel bring in the Joker?
To answer that question — almost certainly. It's why he was teased in the first place and considering the tone of Matt Reeves' flick, the idea is to antagonize Bruce Wayne to his fullest and who better than the clown to get under his skin. The Joker has been a vital part of the Batman movies that have been released over the decade and it's not surprising that he will be the next baddie. The "post-credits" which is just 'Goodbye' typed in green is basically a message that Batman and the dreaded Gotham goons will return. It's cryptic, but hints this isn't the end.
At the moment, there is no official confirmation that there is a sequel in the works. Reeves has hinted that there are talks for a sequel but much is up in the air. "You don’t make number one as if there’s going to be a number two. You have to make number one as if you’re swinging for the fences and it has to be a story that stands and lives on its own," he said in an interview with 'The Independent'.
"But I really believe in what we’ve done and I’d be excited to tell more stories… We are already telling other stories in the streaming space, we’re doing stuff on HBO Max, we’re doing a Penguin show with Colin, which is gonna be super cool. And we’re working on some other stuff too but we have started talking about another movie."
For now, we can safely say the movie will feature two villains, but are there more in the mix, will there just be one? Much of these questions remain unanswered.
'The Batman' is running in theatres near you.