12 Years Later, 'The Batman' Director's Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Masterpiece Roars on Streaming

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Published Mar 15, 2026, 9:12 AM EDT

Rohan Naahar is a Weekend News Writer for Collider. From Francois Ozon to David Fincher, he'll watch anything once.

He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema.

Half a decade will have passed by the time director Matt Reeves finally completes work on The Batman: Part II. The superhero sequel, starring Robert Pattinson in the lead role, has suffered numerous delays, primarily because the script was taking longer than expected. Plus, the management at Warner Bros. underwent several changes, especially with regard to their DC Comics division. It's unclear if Paramount's takeover of the studio will impact The Batman: Part II's production. But there's no denying that Reeves is the right man for the job. Beyond his work on The Batman, his first two studio tentpoles demonstrate that he's a singular talent who could easily have been considered in the same league as Denis Villeneuve, had things panned out differently. Now, arguably his most refined film is once again drawing audiences on streaming.

The movie marked his first mega-budget studio project, following the relatively lean Cloverfield, which made a little more than $170 million worldwide against a reported budget of around $30 million. Reeves followed it up with a well-reviewed but underseen vampire movie, Let Me In, which made $27 million worldwide and earned positive reviews. Let Me In was a remake of the Swedish film Let the Right One In, and was likely green-lit because of the first Twilight movie's success. Reeves was subsequently hired to take over from director Rupert Wyatt at the helm of the Planet of the Apes reboot series. Not only did he have a high benchmark to hit creatively — Wyatt's Rise of the Planet of the Apes was well-received and commercially successful — he also had to put his own stamp on the material.

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That's exactly what he did with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes — an epic war movie that explored far more serious themes than it needed to. The movie was released theatrically in 2014 and featured Andy Serkis in the lead role of Caesar, the intelligent ape who unites his community against human enemies. The film also gave fans the memorable villain Koba, played by Toby Kebbell. It grossed more than $700 million worldwide against a reported budget of $235 million, and is now sitting at a "Certified Fresh" 91% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. According to FlixPatrol, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was among the most-watched movies on the global HBO Max charts this past week, along with Reeves' follow-up, War for the Planet of the Apes. The franchise continued with the soft reboot Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, directed by Wes Ball. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.