Vengeance is coming to your couch: 'The Batman' will hit HBO Max on April 18

Get the popcorn and the Little Caesars Bat-shaped pizza ready. The Batman is coming home. 

HBO Max announced Monday morning that the hit superhero film, directed by Matt Reeves and starring Robert Pattinson in the title role, will hit the streaming service a week from today, April 18, giving fans the chance to watch and rewatch the acclaimed three-hour epic as often as they like. If for some reason you don't have HBO Max but do have HBO (or you know someone who fits that description), the film will also be airing on the premium cable channel April 23 at 8 p.m. Eastern, so set those DVRs.

Picking up with a version of Batman who's been on the job for about a year and still getting used to the gig, The Batman follows Bruce Wayne (Pattinson) as he tracks the activities of a new serial killer calling himself The Riddler (Paul Dano), who seems to be targeting Gotham's elite. At first, Batman's only working with Gotham cop Jim Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) in an effort to solve the murders, but the further Riddler goes, the more he points to a bigger conspiracy, one tied to the very foundations of Gotham, including the Wayne family. With the clock ticking as The Riddler's killing spree builds and builds, Batman has to team up with local cat burglar Selina Kyle (Zoe Kravitz) in the hope of preventing all-out war in Gotham's streets. 

Released in theaters early last month, The Batman was met with rave reviews from critics, who praised Reeves' visual style, Pattinson's performance, and the film's ability to justify its mammoth runtime with a story that kept things moving. It was also a box office hit, pulling in nearly three quarters of a billion dollars worldwide to date, making it the highest-grossing film of the year as of this writing and one of the highest-grossing films of the pandemic era. 

Now, it's heading to streaming, where the future of The Batman universe is already being laid out. Though we haven't heard any direct announcements about a movie sequel yet, the world of The Batman is already set to continue in a new HBO Max series starring Colin Farrell, who will reprise his role as Oswald Cobblepot, aka The Penguin. A second series centered around the Gotham Police Department was also in development, but has since been put on hold. 

So get ready, Batman fans. Now you'll be able to spend as much time as you like with the latest incarnation of The Dark Knight, and pause every scene to look for even more Riddler Easter eggs.