Matt Reeves’ The Batman: Half II is deep into manufacturing, with Robert Pattinson again as Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) reverse returning forged members Jim Gordon (Jeffrey Wright), Alfred Pennyworth (Andy Serkis), and Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell), alongside newcomers Scarlett Johansson and Sebastian Stan in mysterious roles. After a number of date modifications, the sequel is now scheduled for February 18, 2028, leaving loads of time for followers to take a position about the place Reeves will take us subsequent. One of many greatest open questions thus far is who would be the fundamental antagonist of The Batman: Half II, with Reeves beforehand saying that the character has by no means appeared in a live-action Batman film earlier than and that the villain connects to Bruce Wayne’s family historical past.
Whereas followers are nonetheless attempting to determine the plot of The Batman: Half II and the roles of Johansson and Stan, all clues seem to level in direction of the Court docket of Owls because the film’s antagonist. Created by author Scott Snyder and artist Greg Capullo, the group debuted in Batman (vol. 2) #6 in February 2012 as an historic secret society made up of Gotham’s oldest and wealthiest founding households, ruling the town from the shadows for hundreds of years by way of masked enforcers referred to as Talons. As a result of the group controls each establishment from the shadows, from police departments to the media, they problem every thing that Batman thought he knew about his personal hometown, which looks like a pure escalation of the primary film’s themes. It additionally matches with Reeves’ promise to discover the historic sins of the Wayne dynasty. Lastly, there’s quite a lot of visible proof to assist the approaching of the Court docket of Owls.
4) The Owl Card From The Batman
Hypothesis in regards to the Court docket of Owls started in the course of the advertising for the primary movie, years earlier than Reeves confirmed something a few follow-up. Within the film’s 2020 DC FanDome trailer, Jim Gordon recovers an envelope addressed “to the Batman” at a criminal offense scene, left behind by the Riddler (Paul Dano). Inside was a greeting card with an illustration of a wide-eyed owl studying “Out of your secret pal” alongside a cryptic cipher. Followers rapidly cracked the code printed on the cardboard, however the owl paintings led to many theories that Riddler was by some means utilizing the Court docket of Owls within the motion pictures.
The element was straightforward to overlook in a fast-cut teaser constructed round introducing Pattinson’s Batsuit and the Batmobile, and Reeves by no means addressed it immediately in the course of the movie’s press cycle. Nonetheless, the cardboard turned much more seen within the film itself. Whereas The Batman didn’t cope with the Court docket of Owls, in spite of everything, Reeves’ model of Gotham is especially within the metropolis’s structural corruption, so possibly the cardboard was an Easter egg pointing towards the place the filmmaker desires to go together with the franchise.
3) Owl Iconography in The Penguin
The subsequent main signal arrived 4 years later in The Penguin, the HBO restricted sequence that bridges the primary movie and its sequel. Within the present’s finale, Oz Cobb pays a go to to a Gotham Metropolis Corridor courtroom to stress a councilman he had beforehand manipulated into restoring energy to Crown Level. As Cobb enters the chamber, the background briefly exhibits a row of curtains hanging alongside the courtroom partitions, every making a definite owl silhouette.
The picture unfold rapidly amongst followers already, who noticed the curtain preparations and their placement in Metropolis Corridor as a direct tease that the Court docket of Owls was close by. HBO and the manufacturing by no means commented on the design alternative, and it’s totally potential the curtains have been merely a flourish. Then once more, one of many causes The Batman: Half II took so lengthy to be made is that Reeves is a perfectionist paying fixed consideration to particulars, so it’s unlikely the owl curtains are random.
2) The Maze Prop From The Batman: Half II‘s Manufacturing Designer
In August 2026, manufacturing designer Luke Hull, an Emmy winner for his work on Andor and Chornobyl, presently engaged on The Batman: Half II, posted {a photograph} of an elaborate labyrinth construction, providing no caption or clarification alongside it. The design’s tangled corridors call to mind the maze the Court docket of Owls makes use of to entice and disorient Bruce in Snyder and Capullo’s unique storyline. The group desires to interrupt him bodily and psychologically moderately than kill him outright, and Batman roams the corridors of the maze for weeks.
Across the identical interval, studies claimed the Court docket of Owls is immediately concerned within the movie’s plot, giving Hull’s picture renewed that means. As a result of the put up arrived whereas filming was already underway on location in the UK, the maze construction ought to be a practical set piece by now, that means forged and crew have doubtless already labored inside it. As quickly as set footage start to emerge from official sources, we would see extra of this supposed maze and find out about its use. Nonetheless, that’s one more clue pointing to the Court docket of Owls.
1) Owl Masks Noticed on Set
Probably the most direct proof but got here from an on-set report describing background performers transferring between filming areas of The Batman: Half II whereas sporting featureless white masks with rounded eyes and a beak-like level on the nostril, matching the precise design the Court docket of Owls members put on within the comics to hide their identities. The identical account described a junkyard set and a ballroom set being constructed concurrently close by. Preliminary skepticism pale as soon as later set photographs confirmed the junkyard was actual, lending credibility to the remainder of the outline alongside it.
Across the identical stretch of filming, separate set photographs captured a storefront show that includes an ornamental plate stamped with each a bat and an owl positioned one above the opposite, tucked into the background of an in any other case unrelated shot. Any single element could possibly be waved away as an Easter egg for attentive followers, nevertheless it’s laborious to disregard all of the proof pointing to the Court docket of Owls as a significant participant in Reeves’ Gotham Metropolis.