For many fans of the Caped Crusader, Christmas would have been slightly tainted with the news that The Batman 2 is being pushed back to October 1, 2027 from its October 2026 release date. However, James Gunn has defended this move, noting how large delays such as this are “common.”

The Batman 2‘s new 2027 release dates means it will have been five years since Matt Reeves’ 2022 superhero flick hit theaters and brought new life to Gotham.

The movie was a hit, earning $772 million at the worldwide box office and paving the way for an critically successful spinoff series, The Penguin. As such, hype for The Batman 2 remained at a high.

When news of the delay was announced, fans took to social media to bash the change, expressing their disappointment at having to wait.

James Gunn says the Batman 2 delay is “fairly common”

DC head James Gunn already explained the reasoning behind the delay in a Threads post, citing an uncompleted script as the cause. On December 28, he followed up on the subject by pointing out that lengthy gaps between sequels aren’t uncommon in the industry.

“To be fair, a 5 year gap or more is fairly common in sequels,” he wrote. “7 years between Alien and Aliens. 14 years between Incredibles. 7 years between the first two Terminators. 13 years between Avatars. 36 years between Top Guns. And, of course, 6 years between Guardians Vol 2 and Vol 3.”

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It’s also worth noting the gap between movies in another highly-praised Batman series: Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. While The Dark Knight came out only three years after Batman Begins, The Dark Knight Rises was released after a four-year break, in which Nolan also released Inception.

Of course, Gunn’s post hasn’t stopped fans from taking issue with the delay.

As one X user wrote, “James Gunn pretending like the gap between his Guardians movies wasn’t because was literally fired and rehired? I take no issue with spreading sequels out until there’s a story worth telling but this made me laugh.”

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“The problem with a long time gap is when the movie itself is set immediately after the events of the first film,” said another. “This is why I don’t rate The Incredibles 2. I think it’s important that the characters are seen in a different place from the end of the first movie. Esp in this case.”

A third wrote, “I can’t speak on Aliens or Terminator but I can 100% tell you that Incredibles 2 let down a lot of the audience because of how long it took so that a poor example. Momentum is key and when you lose that, people take the blinders off and get hyper critical.”

For more, find out what new movies are coming out soon. You can also keep up to date with James Gunn’s Superman movie, and take a look at our ranking of the Batman movies.