Scarlett Johansson Admits ‘The Batman Part II’ Pushed Her Further Than Expected

Gotham has never been an easy place to settle into. Matt Reeves’ ‘The Batman’ hit theaters in October 2021, and its sequel has been on a bumpy road ever since. It was originally slated for October 2025, then pushed to October 2026, and finally to October 2027.

Into that long wait stepped one of the biggest names in superhero movies. The Hollywood Reporter said Johansson was in “final negotiations” to sign on, a notable jump for the former Avenger. She previously played Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so the move to DC was an eyebrow-raiser from the start.

Now Johansson is offering a rare peek at what the experience has been like, and it sounds far from a victory lap. Speaking with Entertainment Tonight, she was asked which of her two upcoming roles, in ‘The Exorcist: Martyrs’ and ‘The Batman Part II,’ pushed her furthest out of her comfort zone. Her answer came quickly: the Gotham sequel.

“It gave me a lot of existential angst, for some reason,” she said of the ‘Batman’ follow-up. “It was very hard to figure out.”

She didn’t stop there, and her explanation is what makes the comment stand out. “I don’t know why, whether it was just the role or it was just where I am in my life, but it was just hard to crack it,” Johansson added, as shared by Variety.

That is a striking admission from an actress who has anchored franchises and, by now, a long list of demanding performances. It’s also fitting that she was weighing two projects at once. Reports at the time of her casting said her team was juggling negotiations for both ‘The Batman: Part II’ and the new ‘Exorcist’ movie, trying to work out how she could handle both.

What exactly she is wrestling with remains a mystery, because her character hasn’t been revealed. The rumor mill has floated a gender-bent Harvey Dent, Poison Ivy, and Harvey Dent’s wife, Gilda Gold. One report, however, suggested fans shouldn’t expect her to play Poison Ivy. Meanwhile, some fans have been lobbying online for her to play Andrea Beaumont.

The casting shake-up didn’t happen in a vacuum, either. Variety reported at the time that Zoë Kravitz, who played Selina Kyle in the first film, was not expected to return. That left plenty of room for speculation about which new faces would shape Reeves’ next chapter.

Johansson’s comments also add an intriguing layer to a film that has already been described as psychologically heavy. The comments came during a joint interview with Adam Driver, which suggests she was speaking in a relaxed, candid setting rather than a tightly scripted press moment. Even so, “existential angst” is not the phrase most studios hope to see attached to a blockbuster, though it may well signal a performance with real depth.

As for when audiences will see the result, the timeline has shifted again. Filming is reportedly nearing its end, helped along by Steven Soderbergh, and the sequel appears on track for a February 18, 2028 release. That gives fans plenty of time to speculate about who Johansson is playing and why she found the role so hard to crack.

For now, the actress has given ‘The Batman Part II’ just enough of a teaser to keep the guessing game alive. Whatever the character turns out to be, her struggle to find her way in suggests it may be one of the more complicated pieces of Reeves’ Gotham.