Fans of superhero films have been waiting for updates on the sequel of Robert Pattinson’s The Batman. The next instalment which was initially set to release on October 3, 2025, has now been delayed by a year.

As per multiple reports, The Batman 2 will be released on October 2, 2026. The film’s production halted during the Hollywood writers and actors’ strikes.

Robert Pattinson is set to return as the Caped Crusader in The Batman 2. The original film, directed by Matt Reeves also featured Zoe Kravitz, Andy Serkis, Colin Farrell, Paul Dano and more. The film followed a young Bruce Wayne in his initial years of crime-fighting in Gotham. 

So far, the full cast list for the sequel is not out. Further updates are awaited.

The BJP released its second list of candidates this evening for the Lok Sabha polls, after a last-minute hiccup over one seat each in Bihar. The list of 72 names includes a number of old hands including Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal, who is making his electoral debut, and Anurag Singh Thakur. The other fresh face is Manohar Lal Khattar, who was pulled out of the Haryana Chief Minister’s post yesterday. Two other former Chief Ministers — Trivendra Singh Rawat and Basavaraj Bommai — have also been fielded.

Sources said there was an eleventh-hour negotiation over one seat in Bihar.

Candidates have been declared for two seats in Delhi, seven seats in Gujarat, six seats in Haryana, two seats in Himachal Pradesh, 20 seats in Karnataka, 5 seats in Madhya Pradesh, 20 seats in Maharashtra, 6 seats in Telangana, 1 seat in Tripura and 2 seats in Uttarakhand. Candidates have also been announced for Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.

In Delhi, the BJP has fielded two new candidates — Harsh Malhotra from East Delhi and Yogendra Chandolia from North West Delhi.

In Karnataka — the only southern state where the party has considerable heft —  the BJP is fielding around 10 new faces, after its big defeat in the recent assembly election.

Among the known faces is Union minister Pralhad Joshi, who will fight from Dharwad while former Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa’s son BY Raghavendra will contest from Shimoga.

In Bengaluru South, Tejasvi Surya, the BJP’s youth wing chief, will seek re-election. Yaduveer Krishnadatta Wadiyar of the erstwhile Mysore royal familyhas replaced Pratap Simha as the candidate for Mysore seat.

In Maharashtra, the BJP has fielded Union ministers Nitin Gadkari and Piyush Goyal, and former state minister Pankaja Munde. The party has announced candidates for 20 of the state’s 48 seats. After Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra sends the maximum numbee of MPs to the Lok Sabha.

Nitin Gadkari was renominated from Nagpur – the headquarters of the BJP’s ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Among the eight newcomers are Union commerce minister Piyush Goyal – fielded from Mumbai North – and Pankaja Munde from Beed. All Union ministers from Maharashtra have been fielded again.

In Uttarakhand, BJP chief spokesperson and Rajya Sabha member Anil Baluni has been fielded from Garhwal.

Earlier this month, the BJP had announced its first list of more than 190 candidates for the Lok Sabha polls, due this summer.

In that list, the BJP had announced its star contestents– Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi for a third time, Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh, from Gandhinagar and Lucknow. In all, the list named 34 Union ministers.

Releasing its second list of 72 names for the Lok Sabha elections on Wednesday, the BJP has fielded five Union ministers from various states, including Piyush Goyal, who is set to make his electoral debut. His colleagues on the list are Nitin Gadkari, Anurag Thakur, Pralhad Joshi and Rao Inderjit Singh. 

Mr Goyal, who has been a three-time Rajya Sabha member, has been fielded from the Mumbai North seat, which has been held since 2014 by Gopal Shetty of the BJP. The minister – who holds the commerce and industry, textiles, and food and consumer affairs portfolios – joins health minister Mansukh Mandaviya and junior IT minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, among others, who will be making their Lok Sabha debut. 

The decision is in line with the BJP’s strategy of making as many ministers as possible contest the Lok Sabha polls and win, instead of making their way into the Cabinet through the Rajya Sabha.

The choice of Nitin Gadkari as the candidate from Nagpur, seen as important also because it is home to the RSS headquarters, should not be surprising because the Road Transport And Highways Minister has been elected from the seat since 2014. Tongues had, however, begun to wag when Mr Gadkari’s name was not in the first list of 195 candidates released on March 2, which had featured other party heavyweights like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray had even asked the minister to join hands with the opposition if he was “being insulted” by the BJP. Mr Gadkari had, however, rejected the INDIA bloc leader’s invite and dubbed it “immature” and “ridiculous”.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur’s name is one of two released for the four seats of Himachal Pradesh. He will contest from Hamirpur, a constituency he has won since 2008 and was also held by his father, Prem Kumar Dhumal, before him. 

Keeping up its focus on the south – where the BJP needs to do well to get its tally up from the 303 Lok Sabha seats it won in 2019 to the 370 it wants this time – the party has fielded Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi from Dharwad in Karnataka. Mr Joshi has been the MP from Dharwad since 2009 and Karnataka had contributed 25 of the 29 seats the BJP had won from the southern states in 2019.

Rao Inderjit Singh, who is the minister of state with independent charge of the Ministry of Statistics and holds other portfolios as well, will contest from Gurgaon. He has held the seat since 2009.