Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS for The Batman await below.The Batmanarrived in cinemas last week with one of the best DC openings of recent years, and with a completely different take on the Dark Knight to those seen previously on the big screen there are some interesting times coming forMatt Reevesand Robert Pattinson’s iteration of the character and the Gotham City he protects. In recent interviews,Matt Reeves has spoken about some of the deleted scenes from the movie,with one in particular being of special interest as it featured “that character” who appears at the end of the movie.
In the final moments ofThe Batman, Barry Keoghan is seen as a shadowed Joker, residing in a cell next to that of Paul Dano’s incarcerated Riddler. While there is clearly a setup in place for the Joker to make an appearance somewhere in the future of this new noir Batman world, his comments that “everyone loves a comeback story” take on new meaning when a deleted scene between Batman and Joker is added into the mix.
In a recent interview withCinema Blend, director Matt Reeves broke down a scene was originally meant to take place when Batman visits Riddler in Arkham, which would have seen Joker make an earlier appearance in the film, and would have included dialogue that sets up a history between the enemies, suggesting that Batman has already defeated the Clown Prince of Gotham in his first year as the city’s Dark Knight. Reeves said:
“Well, you know, the unseen prisoner is one of the characters that he would’ve confronted in Year 1, and that’s how he ended up there. So they have a relationship. One of the lines from the scene that’s not in is, that unseen prisoner says to him ‘It’s almost our anniversary, isn’t it?’ And you realize that they have a relationship that exists before that character, who is the character that you think he is, before that character becomes that character. He hasn’t yet declared himself that character, but they have a relationship that begins very, very early, and…they’re sort of intertwined with each other in a very specific way.”
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It Is Almost Impossible To Do a Batman Franchise Without The Joker, And The Batman Could Include The Darkest Iteration Yet
The Batmandoesn’t reveal the presence of the Joker until it has told the story it wants to tell, and while we may or may not see Barry Keoghan back in the role as soon as the sequel, it certainly reminds us that he is there, hiding in the shadows. The deleted scene also gives a unique prospect to his future face-off against Robert Pattinson’s Batman, as this could be the first Joker to not be meeting the Caped Crusader for the first time.
So far, the iterations of the Joker that have appeared on the big screen in 1989’sBatmanandThe Dark Knighthave both been taking on their adversary for the one and only time. This time around, Matt Reeves has laid the groundwork to see Batman taking on a Joker who has a history with him, and that could bring about a whole new level to their rivalry.
