Positive Updates on The Batman: Part II: Scarlett Johansson Joins the Cast! Zoe Kravitz Isn’t Returning!

Positive Updates on The Batman: Part II: Scarlett Johansson Joins the Cast! Zoe Kravitz Isn’t Returning! 

After a long time of delays and false updates about The Batman: Part II, this week we’ve actually gotten some updates about the film and whose joining the cast and whose not returning. Let’s talk about it!

Zoe Kravitz Not Returning/My Thoughts

So we’ve known a version of this to be true for a while now. Back in August when she was promoting Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing, interviewers were told by her team not to ask her about The Batman: Part II because she’s not involved and doesn’t know anything. We’ve known this for a while now, so this news wasn’t too surprising to me. At first glance I found it very strange that she’s not returning, because she was the secondary lead in The Batman. But with where that movie ended of her and Batman parting ways and going different directions (literally) it makes sense that she won’t be returning for this movie. We haven’t seen the movie. Maybe once we see the movie we see that the movie isn’t benefited by her appearance. I’m a bit disappointed because I like Kravitz’s take on the character and thought that her and Robert Pattinson had nice chemistry and a dynamic. But it also seems like Batman tends to get a different love interest in every movie that he’s in, so maybe we should’ve seen it coming.  

Scarlett Johansson Joins the Cast/My Thoughts

The other more important piece of news that people have been talking about is that Scarlett Johansson will be joining the cast. When this was revealed it wasn’t revealed who she’s playing but it seems like she’s the new love interest and one of the film’s villains. Without knowing who she’s playing, it’s hard to give too many thoughts. But hey, she’s one of the top actresses working today and has experience in big franchises. That was actually one of the jokes I saw on Twitter was that she’s collecting movie franchises the way Thanos collects Infinity Stones with Home Alone, MCU, Jurassic, The Exorcist, and now Batman. She wants to solidify her rank as the highest grossing movie star. I’m a big fan of Scarlett Johansson so seeing her join the Batman world is very exciting to me. If she is playing the villain, it’ll be a different role for her because I don’t know if she’s ever played the villain. It seems like most of the time she’s played a hero. Getting to see more of her acting chops is exciting and I’m excited to see what character she is playing. 

Her being cast has also led to interest to theorize as to who she could be playing. Matt Reeves has stated the villain hasn’t really been done in a movie before. People were speculating Poison Ivy, well Poison Ivy was done in a movie nearly 30 years ago. The one that I think has some more weight is she’s playing The Phantasm, the villain from Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. I believe Reeves also said that the villain will have connections to Bruce’s past, The Phantasm has connections to Bruce’s past and childhood. If this is true and she’s playing The Phantasm, I think that’s very exciting and it’s a fun villain to put in live action. Because The Phantasm was created for a movie, they didn’t originate from the comics. We technically have seen her in a movie but it is a limited release animated movie from over 30 years ago. Reeves’ quote does line up with The Phantasm nicely.