Charles Dance, best known as Tywin Lannister on “Game of Thrones,” is in talks to join the cast of “The Batman Part II,” according to Variety. As if I couldn’t be excited for this movie enough! 

It had previously been confirmed that Sebastian Stan is starring in the movie as Gotham City District Attorney Harvey Dent — likely to become the super-villain Two-Face, as is tradition — and Dance is reportedly playing Dent’s father. (In the comics, the character has been known as Christopher Dent or Harvey Dent Sr. but Variety reported the name Charles Dent for Dance’s character.) Scarlett Johansson, reported to be joining “The Batman Part II” in December 2025, is rumored to be playing Harvey’s wife Gilda Dent.

The first “The Batman” already took a lot of influence from 1996 comic “Batman: The Long Halloween” by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, which is all about Harvey’s fall from grace. No surprise the sequel is bringing him in. But wait, didn’t writer-director Matt Reeves say (via Variety) the film will have a villain the other Batman movies have never featured before? Two-Face is up there with the Joker, Catwoman, and the Riddler as one of the most frequently-represented Batman villains onscreen, so how does this track?

If the movie includes Harvey’s father, though, then it’ll likely be exploring a part of Two-Face’s backstory that no other movie has: Harvey’s mental illness goes back to an abusive childhood. His fixation on flipping a coin to make decisions? That’s because Dent Sr. used to play a cruel game with him — if the coin landed on heads he’d beat his son, if it landed tails he wouldn’t. Remember, the coin (that Harvey carries as Two-Face) is double-headed.

Harvey Dent’s troubled childhood leading to his dissociative identity and the character of Christopher Dent go back to 1990’s “Batman Annual” #14, or “Eye of the Beholder,” written by Andrew Helfer and drawn by Chris Sprouse. It redefined Two-Face’s origin with this tragic new layer. (“Eye of the Beholder” itself was later expanded on with “The Long Halloween.”)

Two-Face having an abusive father has since been comic canon. It’s been explored in many other Two-Face focused tales, one of the best being 1995’s “Crime and Punishment” by writer J.M. DeMatteis and artist Scott McDaniel.

DC Comics

However, no cinematic iteration of Two-Face has ever adapted what “Eye of the Beholder” established. While the film “Batman Forever” has its fans, it’s also got a pretty lacking Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones), any pathos replaced by a giggling arch-villain.

The contemporary “Batman: The Animated Series” did a much more mature iteration of Two-Face; Harvey Dent (Richard Moll) debuts as a friend of Bruce Wayne (Kevin Conroy). When he becomes Two-Face in an eponymous two-parter, it’s a tragedy. While “Batman: The Animated Series” was frank about Harvey’s mental illness and disfigurement, it reworked his childhood trauma; beating up a bully taught Harvey to repress his “bad” side that later took on a second life.

In Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight,” Harvey (Aaron Eckhart) makes a crack about “his dad’s lucky coin,” but that’s all. Only the novelization by the late Dennis O’Neil (an influential Batman comic writer who with artist Neal Adams revitalized Two-Face in 1972’s “Batman” #234) says Harvey’s dad was abusive. (This could be a detail that was cut from the script, or O’Neil could’ve added it all on his own.)

All of Batman’s best villains contrast him, but Two-Face is his twisted reflection. They’re both men who try (or tried) to bring justice to Gotham City, but are consumed by their own dark halves. One of my absolute favorite Batman moments is in Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns,” when Batman tells Two-Face: “I see a reflection, Harvey. A reflection.”

“The Batman” already featured Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) digging into “the sins of [his] father,” Thomas Wayne (Luke Roberts). “The Batman Part II” centering Harvey’s father in his transformation would make him and Bruce even better foils.

In “Eye of the Beholder,” Christopher Dent only shows up in the present at the very end. Aside from Charles Dance, actors who reportedly passed on the part included Stellan Skarsgård, Brad Pitt, Daniel Craig, and Viggo Mortensen. These are not actors you get for cameos. Christopher is also depicted in that comic as a drunk and a drifter, which doesn’t fit Dance’s typecasting (he plays aristocratic abusive fathers, like Tywin or in Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein”).

The more recent “Batman: One Bad Day — Two-Face” by Mariko Tamaki, Javier Fernandez, and Jordie Bellaire instead had Dent Sr. as a successful businessman. This is pure speculation, but Robert Pattinson has said he wants his Batman to fight the Court of Owls (a secret society of Gotham’s elite). They’ve never been in a movie before, and some fans even contest TV spin-off “The Penguin” foreshadowed the Court. Maybe the Dent family will be reimagined as Gotham City patricians, with the abusive patriarch part of the city’s most ancient corruption, like Batman meets “Succession.”

“The Batman Part II’ is currently scheduled for an October 1, 2027 release.