WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Batman, now playing in theaters.
Even with so many DC villains sprinkled throughout, The Batman nearly aired its final cut without a surprise cameo by the most iconic villain of them all.
Speaking about adding the Joker to his story, director Matt Reeves told Variety that he actually shot a full scene in which Batman broke into Arkham Asylum to interrogate Barry Keoghan's unnamed Arkham inmate about the Riddler. This scene was eventually removed but, after considering whether its loss meant taking out Riddler and Joker's "meet creep" scene too, Reeves kept the latter in order to validate Batman and Selina Kyle's final interaction. The way he saw it, "when Selina is saying to him, 'This place is never going to change,' you hadn't seen that, in fact, trouble was already brewing. You kind of felt like, well, Couldn't you just go with her? Go with her! What's the problem? What's wrong with you?! It changed the emotional stakes. It didn't feel the same."
Reeves also believed that including Keoghan's Joker scene, however briefly, gave Riddler some semblance of camaraderie after Batman foils his master plan."I initially tested it without it; when I put it back in, the scores for the ending went back up," the director continued. "And I think it wasn't just that people enjoyed seeing that character. It changed people's response to the very ending of the movie, to see that Gotham was still Gotham, and that Batman really didn't have a choice. He has to keep doing what he's gonna do."
Though he joined The Batman's cast as far back as 2020, reports that Keoghan would play the Joker were leaked last November courtesy of the Eternals star's brother. This casting makes Keoghan the third actor to play the Joker on film since the DC Extended Universe's creation, following up Joaquin Phoenix in Joker and Jared Leto in Suicide Squad and Zack Snyder's Justice League. Reeves, who wasn't aware of Joker's production when he was brought on board to direct The Batman, recently stated that a crossover between the two films will not happen anytime soon.
Taking place two years after Bruce Wayne became Batman, The Batman sees him and James Gordon team up to solve the clues behind a series of political murders orchestrated by The Riddler. Reeves and Warner Bros are currently in talks to produce a The Batman sequel, with producer Dylan Clark suggesting that it will jump even further into Batman's career as a hero. Two spinoffs are also currently in production, with one focusing on the origins of Colin Farrell's Penguin and the other on the Gotham City Police Department's history before Batman arrived.
The Batman is currently in theaters.
Source: Variety