Sebastian Stan in Talks to Join Robert Pattinson & Scarlett Johansson in “The Batman: Part II”
Sebastian Stan has had a long, fruitful run in the MCU playing Bucky Barnes, also known by his unbeatable antihero-turned-superhero title, the Winter Soldier. Now Stan may be joining fellow MCU alum Scarlett Johansson to deploy to Gotham City in Matt Reeves’ The Batman: Part II.
Considering Stan’s played a villain (of sorts) in Captain America: The Winter Soldier as the brainwashed super-soldier in the second half of the title and the noble defender of justice as the heroic, non-brainwashed version of said Winter Soldier, he’s clearly comfortable playing the heavy or the hero. There’s no indication yet of who he might be playing in Reeves’ sequel—we’re still unclear exactly which of Batman’s iconic foes the Caped Crusader will be battling—so start your speculating.
Stan and Pattinson have worked together before, in director Antonio Campos‘s Southern Gothic thriller The Devil All the Time. With Johansson potentially already in the mix, Stan would be joining an already stacked cast alongside Pattinson. The cast includes Colin Farrell as Oz Cobb/The Penguin, Jeffrey Wright as James Gordon, and Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth.
There’s another big name who appeared, briefly, in the The Batman and could have a much more significant role in Part II—Barry Keoghan. Keoghan appeared to play a certain Arkham prisoner who had a very small role in the first film as the laughing lunatic imprisoned in a cell at Arkham Asylum next to Paul Dano’s Riddler. Perhaps you could guess who he was supposed to be?
There’s also no word yet on who Johansson might play, which isn’t all that surprising given the secrecy around the Reeves and co-writer Mattson Tomlin’s script.
The Batman dropped us into Bruce Wayne’s (Pattinson) world deep into his second year of being his nocturnal vigilantism as the Batman, just in time to tangle with a demented death-dealer calling himself The Riddler (Paul Dano), mucking it up with the ruthless Oz Cobb (Farrell) and getting help (and maybe a little heartache) from Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz)—Farrell’s gangbusters performance as the Penguin led to HBO Max’s critically acclaimed spinoff series.
How seriously has Reeves and his team kept the script for The Batman: Part II under wraps? “We put [the script] into a secret pouch that literally has a lock on it with a code. [Pattinson] was in New York at the time, and everything is high security,” he told Variety.
The Batman: Part II exists outside the newly unified DCU dreamed up by James Gunn and Peter Safran at DC Studios. The DCU kicked off with Gunn’s Superman last summer, and will continue with Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow hitting theaters on June 26, followed by Clayface on September 26 and, in July of 2027, Man of Tomorrow, Gunn’s Superman sequel.
Stan’s last mission in the MCU wasn’t all that long ago—he starred in Thunderbolts* last year, and he’s already slated to appear in Avengers: Doomsday.
Deadline broke the Stan news.
Featured image: Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) in Marvel Studios’ THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Eli Adé. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
