Barry Keoghan’s Joker was talked about having a deleted scene in The Batman in which with the caped crusader. Now you can watch it here.
Matt Reeves had previously mentioned Barry Keoghan’s Joker having a deleted scene with the Batman in Arkham State Hospital and now we can do more than just imagine what that would look like. The scene has been officially released and is available for everyone to see.
In an interview from earlier this month with Variety, Matt Reeves confirmed that Barry Keoghan was the Joker in the final scene from The Batman and detailed how he approached the scene.
“I thought he would be really insecure about this and he’d probably want to find some way to get into the [Riddler’s] mindset, like in ‘Manhunter’ or ‘Mindhunter’ — this idea of profiling somebody, so you can predict his next move,” says Reeves.
Reeves decided to shoot a scene in which Batman snuck into Arkham to find an audience with a certain inmate.
“And this guy says, ‘It’s almost our anniversary, isn’t it?’” says Reeves. “You realize that they have a relationship, and that this guy obviously did something, and Batman somehow got him into Arkham.” As they talk, Batman tells Joker he wants to know how Riddler thinks. Joker’s reply, as relayed by Reeves: “What do you mean, you want to know how he thinks? You guys think the same.”
Reeves smiles. “What he’s really doing is getting into Batman’s head,” he says. “And [Batman] is resisting this idea violently. And so that’s what that scene was. It was a scene to unsettle him.” Ultimately, Reeves thought the scene’s purpose was already accomplished in other parts of the film. So he cut it. “It wasn’t necessary,” he says. “It was one of those scenes where, given how complex the narrative was, by taking it out, it kept the story moving in a way it needed to.”
Robert Pattinson's #Batman meeting Barry Keoghan's Joker 🃏 pic.twitter.com/Mp0xXUJo9V
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Reeves talk further on the scene in an interview with IGN.
“What’s interesting is that the reason that Joker’s in the movie is there was actually another scene that was earlier. And because the movie is not an origin tale for Batman, but it’s his early days, it really is an origin tale for the Rogue’s Gallery’s characters,” Reeves said. “And for me, I think [it’s] this idea that the Joker is not yet the Joker, but they already have this relationship.
“The scene that was not in the movie, the scene that this is really the companion to, which is actually a really cool scene that will release at some point, it’s a scene where Batman is so unnerved because the Riddler is writing to him. And he’s like, ‘Well, why is this guy writing to me?’ And he figures he’s got to profile this killer,” Reeves said, revealing things then took an almost Silence of the Lambs/Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter-like turn. “He goes to see another killer that he’s clearly had an experience with in these first two years. And this killer in this story is not yet the character that we come to know, right?” Reeves said.
“So everybody’s in their infancy. So in the comics, these characters often declare their alter egos in response to the fact that there’s a Batman out there. And so here, we have a Joker who’s not yet the Joker.”
“In the scene that you’ll see in the future, you’ll see that we worked on what he looked like. And he’s held in this very suspenseful way, away from you visually. But I wanted to create an iteration of him that felt distinctive and new, but went right back to the roots,” Reeves said. “So he’s very much out of the Conrad Veidt mold and that idea of the silent film of The Man Who Laughs.”
The first scene of #TheBatman meeting Barry Keoghan’s Joker at Arkham has released. pic.twitter.com/KItDtf96gG
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