The Batman: Part II brings together Matt Reeves and Emmy-winner Luke Hull to redesign Gotham City with a darker, more realistic style starring Robert Pattinson.
Matt Reeves’ hotly anticipated The Batman: Part II has reached an exciting new high with the reveal of its production designer, an Emmy-winning artist whose lineages in cinematic world-building is unparalleled. As the city of Gotham prepares for another trip to the theater, the film’s scope has been expanded to include Luke Hull, known for his revolutionary work on Disney+’s Andor and HBO’s Chernobyl.
Bringing Hull Showrunner Matt Reeves on board to direct, Reeves looks to create more grounded and immersive Gotham. According to Collider, He’s known for his meticulous attention to large, practical sets. He built entire worlds for Andor using a blend of traditional Japanese designs, minimalist Nordic styles and rugged Scottish strongholds. This fusion breathed new life into the Star Wars landscapes. His acclaimed sets for Chernobyl constructed an entire power plant. He emphasized gritty, authentic details that would add substance to the story’s emotions and themes.
Fans in DC and Star Wars communities have already been singing praises of Hull’s casting. They appreciate his knack for making locations into important characters.
Gotham is at the heart of Batman’s story. It will darken and become more deeply felt inside. Hull’s previous work indicates a city that depicts Bruce Wayne’s battle against its decay and moral drop.
Besides this major offscreen change, the film also brings back the core cast: Robert Pattinson as Batman, Colin Farrell as Oz Cobblepot/The Penguin, Jeffrey Wright as Commissioner Gordon, and Andy Serkis. Production is set to begin in January next year. The script is done.
The story begins immediately following the hit HBO max series The Penguin. It provides a consistent pace and intensity for fans of the original film and the complete Gotham narrative.
In comparing the look of The Batman to that of the forthcoming The Batman: Part II, there are notable differences in the production design, as well as in Gotham City’s artistic direction. Part II wants to take world-building even further and perhaps embrace more traditional comic book iconography while the first film is celebrated for its mood, desaturated, neo-noir look.
| The Batman (2022) | The Batman: Part II (2027) |
| Palette of Colors and Atmosphere: Muted/desaturated to the extreme on all levels, consisting of a very limited desaturated palette composed mainly by dusty deep tones with occasional pops of red, or orange. | Color Scheme and World-Building: There will be deeper colours, with more shades, but a dark intention. This is the plain and old-fashioned places of Hull. Gotham’s architecture will be more defined: There will be windows, and roofs on some of the buildings, as CBR says. |
| Cinematography: A close, tactile camera feel was achieved through the use of Arri ALFA lenses. It focused on harsh reality and silhouette imagery a-la Roger Deakins. | Visual Ideas: Initial discussions on Reddit are that the next movie will be even more strongly influenced by vintage Batman comics. There are also shots of him on gargoyles and grand, bold scenes. The camera is close and intimate but non-pornographic. |
| Urban Environment: The streets always appeared wet, to suggest perpetual rain and a somber mood. The city pressed down hard and felt harsh. Night scenes gave Gotham a gritty feel and Bruce Wayne’s secretive nature. | Production Designer Swap: Andor and Chernobyl’s Luke Hull takes over duties from James Chinlund. Everything He Touches Turns to Real, Physical Space He excels at creating real, tangible, physical worlds, with sets you can touch. This transformation gives a whole new perspective to the buildings, and overall feel, in Gotham. |
| Symbolism: It conveyed desolation and little optimism, at times portraying Batman as a creature of the darkness. Warm orange from the flares lightened the colors only in a few places, such as the end. This was hope arising out of loss. | Comic Tribute: Sequel looks to snatch iconic comic book panels for Batman’s look. That against the muted truth of the first film in picked classic poses. |
| Riffing: Some of your crew spots may change, but Matt Reeves keeps close-to-the-vest stories and tailspin tone. Hull’s elegant set pieces will elevate it. |
In Short, The Batman is distinguished by its muted colors, wet surfaces, and urban stress forged in shadows.
The Batman: Part II is to expand upon Gotham’s style through Luke Hull’s immersive, practical sets. It could be a tribute to vintage comic illustrations too. This gives a fresh spin which remains just as moody for the cape-wearing hero.
The fact that Matt Reeves went out and hired Luke Hull means that Matt Reeves wants literally every person in Gotham to be filled with the inner pain and dark thoughts that is at the core of Batman’s world. Hull has demonstrated that he can make locations come to life on the page in stories such as Star Wars’ Chandrila or the Chernobyl plant, where setting is integral to plot.
His Gothamville is in decline and ready to roar on October 1, 2027 as the making of the film starts in 2026. The Batman: Part II holds the promise of a film trip that the long wait will make all too right.
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Welcome to FandomFans — your source for the latest buzz from Hollywood’s creative underworld. Here, we explore the art of filmmaking, knowing about how visionary directors, designers, and actors shape the worlds we escape into. Today we break down Matt Reeves’ ambitious direction for The Batman: Part II, Emmy-winner Luke Hull (Andor, Chernobyl) steps in to reinvent Gotham’s shadowy skyline for its next cinematic evolution.
Discover the best horror movies 2025, from award-nominated thrillers to scares, prestige cinema and storytelling indie nightmares.
For decades now, horror has existed a bit on the margins of awards season — the darling of the audience but the red-headed stepchild of the institutions. But 2025 completely twists that narrative on its head. The horror genre has been conspicuously absent from Golden Globe nominations in recent years, but a blood-soaked drama here, classic monsters there, and some nerve-shredding indie scares for good measure proves that horror is now officially in the prestige spotlight. From Ryan Coogler’s bold Sinners to Guillermo del Toro’s soulful Frankenstein, this year offers ample proof that fear, when honed through vision and thoughtfulness, can hold its own with the most lauded cinematic storytelling.
The 2026 Golden Globes nominations was recently released, and the lead is not one of the usual biopics or oscarbaits. It’s blood, guts, and monsters. With major nods for Ryan Coogler’s Sinners and Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, Screenrant has just spoken the quiet part out loud: 2025 is definitely the Year of Horror.
The jaw-dropper was not just that horror movies got nominated—it’s where they got nominated. Over the years, if a horror film managed to creep its way up the awards chat, it would usually be shafted to the technical side of things, or weirdly, “Musical or Comedy” (remember Get Out?).
But this year, two of the six slots for the Best Motion Picture – Drama are bona fide horror films.
First, we have “Sinners“. It was always going to be an event when Ryan Coogler re-teamed with Michael B. Jordan, but I don’t think anyone was ready for this level of acclaim. A period vampire thriller set in the Jim Crow South? It seemed risky on paper, but the execution was perfect.
With seven nominations, Sinners is both leading the pack and the only one with the majority of the votes. It combines high-brow historical drama with old-school, monster-movie terror in a way we haven’t seen since maybe Interview with the Vampire, but with more bite (pun intended).
Then there’s “Frankenstein.” Guillermo del Toro has long been our advocate when it comes to monsters, but his version of the Mary Shelley staple for Netflix feels like his magnum opus. Taking five nominations, it shows that classic monsters never go out of style – they just need a master’s touch.
Oscar Isaac (as the Doctor) and Jacob Elordi (as the Monster) being in the acting conversations at all is a sign that voters are finally looking beyond the prosthetics and seeing the soul beneath.
It’s not just the gargantuan applicants to the studio system getting the love. The indie community, who’d been holding the horror torch aloft for years, eventually was given its seat at the table.
Zach Cregger’s “Weapons”—his follow-up to Barbarian that’s highly anticipated—squeaked in a nomination for Amy Madigan as Supporting Actress. If you’ve watched the film, you know exactly why. What she did as Aunt Gladys was nightmare fuel, and she went right into the “Horror Hall of Fame.” To have a performance that is frighteningly recognized by a major voting body is a huge win for all of us who make the case that scaring an audience is just as hard a task as making them cry.
This round of accolades feels like a direct sequel to the proving ground of 2024. Remember when Demi Moore took home the Globe for The Substance? That felt like a fluke, we thought — “lifetime achievement” type deal for a body horror shocker. But in retrospect it was the crack in the dam. That victory sent a message to the industry that “weird” and “gross” could also be “prestige.”
The Last of Us Season 2 expands on the show’s haunting world, turning its focus from survival to the emotional toll of violence and revenge. With higher stakes, darker themes, and increasingly active threats, the season examines how love, loss, and trauma transform its characters in a vicious post-pandemic world.
Bella Ramsey’s nomination is a testament that the series still packs a punch emotionally even as the clickers grow more terrifying.
Then there’s Season 2 of “Wednesday” and “Monster: The Ed Gein Story,” both of which earned nominations for Jenna Ortega and Charlie Hunnam. It’s a media environment that implies dark audiences want darkness, and dark creators are catering to their tastes in high end packaging.
Wednesday Season 2 broadens the strange and disturbing world of Nevermore Academy. It throws Wednesday Addams into more lethal riddles and more challenging personal battles. The danger mounts with scarier scares, more warped laughs, and ever changing bonds. The program maintains its gothic, grim allure.
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We no longer need to call it “elevated” to be allowed to enjoy it. Sinners is simply an excellent film. Frankenstein is a tragedy and a masterpiece. Weapons are a roller coaster of anxiety. They aren’t “good for horror movies”—they’re just really good films, full stop.
The stigma against what some call “left-of-center” storytelling is dissipating. A generation of filmmakers raised on Carpenter, Craven and Romero are now making movies with A-list budgets and A-list stars. And obviously, the electorate wants to get on board for the ride.
What really makes 2025 feel like we’re standing at the cliff edge of a new era isn’t just the nominations themselves—it’s the mindset behind them. Best Horror Movies 2025 is no longer being praised simply for being horror but it’s being celebrated as powerful cinema. Studio-backed blockbusters, audacious independents and genre-heavy television racing to dominate in major categories: the implication is clear, horror has grown up, and the awards bodies are perhaps ready to acknowledge that. The monsters were always meaningful— we just needed the industry to stop looking away.
Fandomfans is focusing on delivering real insights and a list of A-list movies with full details.
The Avatar: Fire and Ash world premiere reveals the Ash People, a violent new Na'vi tribe, and a dark, unpredictable Pandora. Releasing on 19th December 2025.
If you thought Pandora was just about bioluminescent forests and spiritual connections with whales, James Cameron is about to torch that image, literally. Hell, we’ve been falling in love with the Na’vi for more than a decade. They are the good guys, the protagonists, the noble-savage environmentalists who are being persecuted by evil, rapacious humans.
However, the Avatar: Fire and Ash World Premiere, this new film of the franchise is coming out on 19 December 2025, which is going to turn the whole series on its head. It’s not only all about “save the trees,” it’s a journey into the moral tangle of a world we thought we knew.
For the first time, the danger is not just falling from the sky, but arising from Pandora itself.
The biggest revelation at the world premiere of Avatar 3 events is the introduction of the Ash People. Residing in the volcanic wastelands of Pandora, this mysterious new tribe represents a total opposite to the Omatikaya, who live in the forests, and the Metkayina, who dwell on the ocean reefs.
Under the leadership of the cruel Varang (Game of Thrones alum Oona Chaplin), the Ash People are fire incarnate. Cameron has been clear on what this means, if water symbolized adaptation and flow, fire symbolized rage, violence, and destruction. These are not the peaceful natives we’re accustomed to. They’re aggressive and territorial, and maybe most shockingly, they could be the antagonists of the story.
It’s a superb narrative turn. Cameron introduces us to a “bad” Na’vi clan, thus complicating the simple Nature vs Technology binary established in the first two films.
It raises the question, What if the native population is as divided and as flawed as the invaders?
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Visually, we’re in for a surprise. The cool blues and greens are historical. Concept art and trailer descriptions show a terrain covered with charcoal blacks, melting lavas, and blinding smoke. The Ash People themselves are said to have a unique appearance — ghostly, ash-covered skin, perhaps even physical mutations evolved for life in a volcanic environment.
Volcanoes are not the full story. The film introduces the Wind Traders as well. This nomadic group traverses the air over Pandora. New zones range from oceans to molten mountains and open skies. Pandora makes for a real, profound world. Not just a plain movie backdrop.
Let’s not lose track of that point. The Way of Water ends with an agonizing blow—the death of Neteyam. Fire and Ash now with Jake and Neytiri against the crushing weight of grief. The title itself hints at this theme, “Ash” is more than just volcanic debris, it’s what remains after a fire has burnt through. It’s like an intermission in grieving.
Rumors suggest this grief will drive a wedge in the Sully family, potentially pushing characters toward darker choices. And then there’s Colonel Quaritch. Now fully embedded in his Avatar body, he’s no longer just a soldier following orders.
He’s undergoing an identity crisis, and some theories suggest he might find a strange kinship with the aggressive philosophy of the Ash People. Could we see a team-up between the RDA and the Fire Clan? It’s a terrifying possibility.
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James Cameron never plays it safe. He held off on the sequel for 13 years because the technology needed to catch up to his vision. Now, just three years after The Way of Water, he’s coming with Fire and Ash, suggesting an — no pun intended — fiery confidence in the story.
He has vowed to “break the mold” and reveal that Pandora, like Earth, is “both a place of stunning beauty and unimaginable savagery.” As we slowly begin our journey to December 2025 one thing is becoming clear that the war for Pandora is not black and white. It’s in shades of grey and red.
So you can pack your rebreathers and make it hot. Pandora is burning, and we get a front-row seat.
Avatar: Fire and Ash is more than just another sequel — it is a reimagining of Pandora. New tribes, darker feelings, volcano landscapes, and morally ambiguous conflicts, James Cameron is bringing the series to new levels. The bravest, most intense chapter of Avatar is set to deliver in December 2025.
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