Soderbergh Steps In so Reeves Can Keep Batman II

Steven Soderbergh will shoot the last weeks of The Batman Part II in London while Matt Reeves stays on the film from Los Angeles. DC Studios confirmed the plan on Oct. 15, ten days after Reeves left set for a family matter. Soderbergh’s brief is to generate footage that cuts into what Reeves already shot, so Reeves can finish his own movie.

The shoot is about two-thirds complete. The sequel is still dated for Feb. 18, 2028.

Soderbergh Takes London While Reeves Keeps Post

Cameras on the Robert Pattinson sequel first rolled on June 12, 2026 at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, with Reeves posting a clapper for Scene 26 that same day. Location units then moved through Liverpool, the Silver Jubilee Bridge in Runcorn, and a three-week Glasgow takeover that began Aug. 18. Production paused on Oct. 5 while Reeves attended to the family matter, nearly four months into filming.

DC Studios said Soderbergh, “as an admirer of Matt’s work, approached Matt and will step in, with the full support of DC Studios, to help the writer-director complete the final weeks of principal photography.” Soderbergh will work in London. Reeves will operate from Los Angeles and is due to be more hands-on once the movie reaches post there. The two are to stay in communication until shooting ends.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The split: Soderbergh runs the remaining London days; Reeves stays on the film from Los Angeles and is expected to take post-production.
• The progress: The movie is about two-thirds shot, with only the final weeks of principal photography left.
• The date on the sheet: Warner Bros. has not posted a new opening, and Feb. 18, 2028 is still the public target.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• A restart day: DC Studios has not named the first day Soderbergh will call action.
• Screen credit: No one has said whether Soderbergh will share a directing credit.
• The 2028 hold: People close to the production have said it is too early to know whether the pause will push the opening.

Peter Safran, co-chief of DC Studios, had already been asked, before Soderbergh’s name landed, whether there was any scenario in which Part II would not start filming again. His answer was “No.” He also said that what the studio had seen of the shoot “looked absolutely fantastic.”

The Job Is to Make His Footage Vanish

Soderbergh did not describe himself as the new director of the movie. He described a matching job, and he used the same idea he used the last time a friend asked him to finish someone else’s days.

I thought Matt Reeves’ work on The Batman was stunning; it was intentional, specific, and rigorously coherent. The goal here is to work with Matt and his team to generate footage that will integrate seamlessly with what’s already been shot so Matt can properly finish his film.

Steven Soderbergh, director, statement, Oct. 15, 2026

In 2011, Gary Ross called him for two days of second-unit work on The Hunger Games, in the first week of August, because Ross would rather have a friend he trusted than a stranger. Soderbergh was wrapping Contagion and prepping Magic Mike. He said then that the fun of the job was to duplicate exactly what Ross and cinematographer Tom Stern were doing, and to mimic their aesthetic as closely as he could. “If I’ve done my job properly, I hope I did, by design, you won’t be able to tell what I did. Because it’s supposed to cut seamlessly into what they’re doing. That’s the whole point.”

That is the assignment again, only longer. The Hunger Games stint was two days. The Batman Part II still has weeks on the board, with Pattinson, the regulars, and a large UK crew already inside Reeves’ blocking, lighting, and weather. Soderbergh won a Directing Oscar for Traffic in 2000, then spent the years around this shoot making smaller, stranger films. The point of hiring him here is not a new style. It is a director who can copy one.

Four Release Dates, Then a Pause

The first Batman, which opened in the United States on March 4, 2022, grossed $772.8 million worldwide on a $200 million budget, including a $134 million domestic opening. DC Studios first put a sequel on the calendar for Oct. 3, 2025. That date has since moved three times, and the gap from the first film to the current target is 5 years and 11 months.

THE SEQUEL’S MOVING DATES

James Gunn, co-chief of DC Studios, defended the long wait when the 2027 date went up, writing that a five-year gap or more is fairly common in sequels and listing Alien, The Incredibles, Terminator, Avatar, and Top Gun as examples. Reeves and co-writer Mattson Tomlin posted a photo of a finished screenplay on June 27, 2025. Cameras still did not roll until June 12, 2026. The February 2028 date was posted a month after that start, once the studio said the film needed more room in post, and J.J. Abrams’ The Great Beyond took the October 2027 Friday that Part II gave back.

By the time Reeves left set on Oct. 5, the sequel had already burned through four public dates. Waiting for him to walk back onto a Leavesden stage would have put the one remaining window at risk. Bringing in a closer who will not restyle the movie is the cheaper way to keep February without putting a new name on the poster.

Gunn Says the Director Never Left

The first public read treated Soderbergh as a replacement. That is the reflex this studio still lives with, and it moved faster than the statements. Reeves, Gunn, and Soderbergh all described the same chain of command: Reeves remains the director, Soderbergh finishes the days he cannot stand, and the cut goes back to Reeves.

Reeves posted the line himself the afternoon the news broke.

Just to be clear, I am not leaving The Batman Part II. I am profoundly grateful to Steven for coming to my aid during this challenging time to help me finish principal photography. Thank you to all for your concern and well wishes. 🦇

— Matt Reeves (@mattreevesLA) October 15, 2026

Gunn wrote on Threads that Matt is still the director of The Batman 2 and always will be, and that he could not express how profoundly grateful and moved the studio was by Soderbergh’s offer to help Reeves complete his vision. Reeves’ own post was blunter: “Just to be clear, I am not leaving The Batman Part II.” He thanked Soderbergh for coming to his aid “during this challenging time to help me finish principal photography.”

WHO DOES WHAT NOW

• Matt Reeves: Still the director, working from Los Angeles, due to take post-production when he is ready.
• Steven Soderbergh: On the London set for the final weeks, shooting to Reeves’ plan with the existing crew.
• DC Studios: Full public support for Reeves, with Gunn and Safran both saying the movie continues as his.
• The company: Pattinson returns as Bruce Wayne, with Andy Serkis, Colin Farrell, and Jeffrey Wright back, and Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Brian Tyree Henry, Jayme Lawson, Charles Dance, Gil Perez-Abraham, and Sebastian Koch on the call sheet.

Warner Bros. hired Reeves to direct The Batman in 2017. He also produced The Penguin, the HBO spinoff that picked up after the first film’s flood. The studio has every reason to keep his name on the sequel. The risk is practical, not political: a director who cannot be on set, a crew already in the UK, and a date that has nowhere left to slide without hitting 2029.

What Soderbergh Has to Match

The visual problem is sharper than a handoff of days. Greig Fraser shot the 2022 film, the one Roger Deakins called the best-looking picture of that year. Fraser did not return. Erik Messerschmidt, who won the cinematography Oscar for Mank and has been David Fincher’s recent camera lead, took the sequel, a change Reeves confirmed when he tagged Messerschmidt on that June 12 clapper.

Soderbergh is not matching the 2022 movie. He is matching Messerschmidt’s new package, inside a winter Gotham that has already been built across Leavesden stages, a snowed-up Runcorn bridge, and Glasgow streets dressed from Bothwell Street to the Clyde. The first film lived on rain, haze, and very low light. The sequel’s early stills and location work have leaned colder and more spherical, a shift people on the camera side flagged as soon as Messerschmidt’s tests appeared. Whatever Soderbergh shoots in the last weeks has to sit in that grammar, next to footage Reeves already signed off, or the cut will announce the join.

That is why the Hunger Games parallel matters more than a famous name on a call sheet. Ross wanted someone rigorous about matching. Reeves, from a distance, needs the same thing with more days, more money, and a DP who is not the DP of the last movie.

Warner Bros. Has Changed Directors Midstream Before

The studio has done this on DC movies, and some of those handoffs became the movie. Richard Donner was replaced by Richard Lester on Superman II in 1980 after shooting part of that sequel while finishing the first film. Nine years before this pause, Zack Snyder left Justice League after a family tragedy, and Joss Whedon finished a version the studio released in 2017; Snyder later assembled his own cut. Those jobs were takeovers. They produced two movies, two credits, and a fight that still trails the lot.

HOW THOSE HANDOFFS RAN

• Superman II, 1980: Lester replaced Donner mid-production and the released film carried Lester’s stamp.
• Justice League, 2017: Whedon replaced Snyder, the theatrical cut diverged, and the studio later issued Snyder’s version.
• The Batman Part II, 2026: Soderbergh asked Reeves if he could finish the remaining weeks, and both men say the footage is meant to disappear into Reeves’ cut.

The structure this time runs the other way. Soderbergh volunteered. Reeves never posted a goodbye. Gunn repeated that the director did not leave. If the London days really do vanish in the Avid, audiences will not be asked to watch a Soderbergh Batman. They will be asked to watch the rest of a Reeves one, assembled by Reeves, months after the last slate.

The Calendar Still Reads February

The pause has not been given a restart day, and people close to the production have already said it is too early to know whether Oct. 5 will nudge Feb. 18. The studio has not posted a fifth date. IMAX is still on the plan. Elseworlds is still the label that keeps this Gotham off Gunn’s DCU calendar. For a movie that has already moved from 2025 to 2026 to 2027 to 2028, that silence is the hold.

Soderbergh goes to London to shoot what is left. Reeves stays in Los Angeles and, if the plan holds, takes the footage into post. The name on the movie, on the day DC spoke, was still his.