Warner Bros. Japan announced this week that a Batman Ninja film sequel is in the works, called Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League.
It is always a gamble for original stories to be brought to the big screen from an already existing IP. Warner Bros. Japan announced this week (Thursday, May 30) that a Batman Ninja sequel called Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League is currently in the works. Also, both this sequel and Suicide Squad ISEKAI will have a stage event at Anime Expo 2024, at the Novo, Los Angeles on July 4 from 2:00 to 3:30 PM (PST). Some key art/logo for the film was posted on the film’s X/Twitter account, offering a glimpse of the upcoming film.
Batman Ninja proved to be a much-anticipated screenplay back in 2018, which fans agreed had an interesting enough story with an amazingly gritty art style. So, it is no surprise that another film will follow it up. Some of the sparse details given were that Koichi Yamadera (Spike in Cowboy Bebop) will voice Batman again. Junpei Mizusaki (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure) also returns to direct the new feature at studio Kamikaze Douga, with co-direction by Shinji Takagi, a screenplay by Kazuki Nakashima (Promare), character designs by Takashi Okazaki (Afro Samurai) and music by Yugo Kanno (PSYCHO-PASS).
The key art/logo for Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League showed a black-and-bloodied ‘ninja’ logo. We can only speculate that this sequel will be a very bloody one. Batman Ninja had its domestic home video earnings of a whopping $3,643,037. Originally, the film was released digitally in the U.S. and theatrically in Japan, with each release having two different scripts, thereby bringing about two “very different versions” of the same movie. In case you missed it, definitely watch it. But here is the synopsis of Batman Ninja that Warner Bros. provided:
“Batman Ninja takes a journey across the ages as Gorilla Grodd’s time displacement machine transports many of Batman’s worst enemies to feudal Japan – along with the Dark Knight and a few of his allies. The villains take over the forms of the feudal lords that rule the divided land, with the Joker taking the lead among the warring factions.” The English voice cast included Tony Hale as The Joker, Roger Craig Smith (Batman: Arkham Origins) as Batman, Grey Griffin (Scooby-Doo) as Catwoman, Tara Strong (Batman: The Killing Joke) as Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, and Fred Tatasciore (Family Guy) as Gorilla Grodd and Deathstroke—quite the stacked cast!
While it pains me to say, we still have to wait and see what comes out of the panel at Anime Expo in July for the details on this DC anime project.
