James Gunn and Matt Reeves keep swearing their worlds won’t collide. Reeves has his “Epic Crime Saga,” the gritty Gotham sandbox he kicked off with The Batman and spun into The Penguin. Gunn has his shiny new DCU, led by Superman, which opened solidly but nowhere near Man of Steel’s raw profitability. Both camps have been crystal clear: different Batmen, different universes, different vibes.
Except here’s the thing—Reeves isn’t slowing down. At the Emmys last night, he confirmed talks are already happening for The Penguin season two, plus the possibility of more villain spinoffs. That’s not a guy building a little side universe. That’s a guy laying the foundation for a Gotham empire. And once you start expanding, once you start weaving spinoffs around spinoffs, the gravitational pull toward the larger DCU becomes impossible to ignore.
Reeves has played the polite card—head down, focusing on The Batman Part II, thankful to Gunn and Safran for letting him play in his own sandbox. Gunn has been equally diplomatic, saying he “contemplated” making Pattinson the DCU Batman before deciding the tones don’t mix. Reeves is grounded and grim, Gunn’s DCU has kaiju and Kryptonians. Oil and water. Fine.
But audiences don’t think in tonal lanes. They don’t separate “Elseworlds” from “mainline canon.” They just know Batman is Batman. And if one Batman lives in a mob epic while another pops up fighting alongside Superman, it’s going to cause confusion. Gunn dismissed this concern online by saying something like, “Well, you’re not confused, so it’s fine.” But that’s missing the point. Of course the online diehards aren’t confused—they live for this stuff. It’s the Normie crowd, the general audience, the people who see two or three superhero movies a year who get lost in the shuffle. And confused audiences stop showing up.
That’s why the smart play is to merge. Not in some awkward crash-landing way, but with intent. Reeves has the popularity, Gunn has the shared universe framework, and the two can complement each other if handled correctly. The easy solution? Place Reeves’ saga twenty years before Gunn’s Superman. Let Pattinson be the proto-hero in a world that hasn’t gone cosmic yet. Gunn still gets to build his universe without stepping on Reeves’ toes, and when Brave and the Bold introduces a new Batman, it feels like a natural evolution, not a replacement.
And there’s already precedent. The last few episodes of Peacemaker dipped into multiverse territory with those portals, teasing possibilities. If you think Gunn is above using that to retroactively fold Reeves’ Batman into the DCU when it’s convenient, I’ve got a Bat-signal to sell you. The multiverse is the perfect back door, and it’s already been cracked open.
Add in the corporate wildcard—if David Ellison and Skydance buy Warner Bros., you can bet the first thing they’ll do is streamline. Mergers hate redundancy, and nothing screams redundancy like two parallel Batmen. In that scenario, Reeves’ Gotham saga doesn’t stay separate because it can’t. The accountants won’t allow it.
Which is why it makes more sense to figure it out now. Merge on your own terms, not when the boardroom forces your hand. Because here’s the reality: The Batman is the crown jewel. It pulled nearly $770 million worldwide. The Penguin smashed ratings on Max and just cleaned up at the Emmys. Reeves’ Gotham has more cultural clout right now than Gunn’s Superman, and audiences have already voted with their wallets. This is the Batman people care about.
So yeah, Gunn can talk about his Elseworlds strategy all he wants, and Reeves can pretend he’s content to just build out his corner of Gotham. But the writing’s on the wall. Expansion means integration. Popularity means pressure. And if Gunn and Reeves don’t figure out a clean way to bridge the gap now, the suits will eventually do it for them. Whether it’s through corporate fiat or a multiverse gimmick, these worlds are destined to collide. The only question is whether it happens with elegance—or in a shotgun wedding under fluorescent boardroom lights.
Hollywood After Dark 