While The Batman: Part II has finally entered production, no one knows for sure who the movie’s villain will be. Director Matt Reeves has remained guarded about who Batman will face next, though he has confirmed the character has never previously appeared in a live-action Batman film and that the story digs into Bruce Wayne’s (Robert Pattinson) past. The mystery deepened once Sebastian Stan and Scarlett Johansson joined the cast in undisclosed roles. Both actors were initially expected to play Harvey Dent and his wife Gilda, but recent leaks have reshuffled the guessing game, pointing instead toward Victor Zsasz and a grounded take on Poison Ivy. Now, a new piece of the puzzle has surfaced, seemingly confirming the most popular theory.
Luke Hull, the two-time Emmy winner behind the production design of Andor and Chernobyl, is currently working alongside Reeves on The Batman: Part II. Hull posted a new image to Instagram showing a labyrinth built entirely out of steel, offering no caption or context to explain what it belongs to. Given that Hull is actively designing sets for the sequel, fans immediately connected the image to the film itself. The labyrinth carries unmistakable weight, since it strongly evokes the Court of Owls, the secretive Gotham institution that has become central to one of Batman’s most acclaimed modern comic arcs.
The Court of Owls originated in Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Batman run in 2011, introduced as a secret society composed of Gotham’s oldest and wealthiest families. Rather than functioning as a conventional criminal syndicate, the Court quietly manipulates the city’s politics, industry, and law enforcement from the shadows, punishing anyone who threatens its interests through an order of trained assassins known as Talons. The comic arc’s defining set piece is the Labyrinth, an underground maze the Court traps Bruce inside for over a week during his very first encounter with the organization, feeding him drugged water that sends him into disturbing hallucinations as a Talon hunts him through the shadows. That sequence, illustrated with disorienting, rotated panels, is widely regarded as one of the best chapters of modern Batman comics.
The labyrinth is not the only detail pointing toward the Court in The Batman: Part II. Earlier production reports described figures dressed in owl-like masks moving between sets, alongside a junkyard and a ballroom. Recent set photos have since confirmed that the junkyard is indeed part of the production, lending the earlier report credibility. Taken together, these clues point to the theatrical debut of the Court of Owls.
The Court of Owls fits naturally within the thematic framework Reeves already established. The first film examined how systemic corruption breeds monsters, using Paul Dano’s Riddler as a symbol of a city failing its most vulnerable citizens. The Court lets Reeves push that idea further, since the organization is the epitome of generational wealth, spoiled rich people capable of doing anything to keep their power while the rest of the world is crushed under their feet. In the comics, Bruce even discovers his own family’s fingerprints on the Court’s history, learning an ancestor helped build the hidden chambers the organization still uses. That makes it exactly the kind of villain reveal Reeves has been teasing.
The Batman: Part II is scheduled to be released in theaters on February 18, 2028.
