Sebastian Stan is no stranger to comic book movies. He auditioned to play Steve Rogers in 2011's Captain America: The First Avenger, and ultimately landed the role of Bucky Barnes.
Stan has returned to that character in several MCU projects, including Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, and Thunderbolts*. He'll next suit up as the former HYDRA assassin in Avengers: Doomsday.
Now, it sounds like the actor is looking to join Scarlett Johansson by making the leap to the DC Universe. Well, Matt Reeves' Batverse.
Deadline reports that Stan is in talks to join the cast of The Batman Part II, with his role currently kept under wraps by DC Studios. We recently heard that Reeves is looking to cast Harvey Dent and his father, and Jeff Sneider has already taken to X to suggest that Stan is indeed the filmmaker's choice for Two-Face.
Despite being known for playing a hero, Stan has taken on plenty of morally complex roles in recent years. Those include memorable turns in Fresh, A Different Man, and his Oscar-nominated take on Donald Trump in The Apprentice.
Variety, meanwhile, is reporting that Barry Keoghan is expected to reprise his role as The Joker after appearing in a deleted scene and during the closing moments of The Batman.
That movie ended by setting the stage for what sounded like a team-up with The Joker and The Riddler, though many fans at the time expressed disappointment that Reeves was seemingly focusing on two villains who have received a lot of screentime over the years. The Clown Prince of Crime taking centre stage in The Batman: Part II also feels very reminiscent of The Dark Knight in 2008, as does Harvey being in the mix.
"[In] a lot of the other films, which I love, once you get past the origin tale, which we didn’t quite do, but we did something that referred to his origins, then you start telling the Rogues Gallery story and that character’s sort of arch," Reeves said last year. "But I never wanted to lose [Robert Pattinson] at the center of these stories, and so that is really what we set our aim on."
Explaining that his decision to focus more on Bruce Wayne (and Batman) inspired his choice of villain/s, the writer and director later confirmed the sequel's antagonist has "never really been done in a movie before." That does seem to imply that Two-Face and The Joker would take a backseat to, say, Phantasm or Hush.
Directed by Matt Reeves from a script by him and Mattson Tomlin, The Batman: Part II stars Robert Pattinson, Scarlett Johansson, Colin Farrell, Andy Serkis, and Jeffrey Wright.
The Batman Part II is set to be released in theaters on October 1, 2027.