The highly-anticipated reboot of Matt Reeves' The Batman just landed in theaters. Featuring Robert Pattinson as the new caped crusader, the film follows Bruce Wayne in his second year of solving crimes for Gotham City. The film also introduced Paul Dano as the main villain, The Riddler, who will be the first in line to antagonize Batman in the first film.
Alongside Dano and Pattinson, they are joined by an ensemble cast that includes Zoe Kravitz as the new Catwoman, Colin Farrell as The Penguin, Jeffrey Wright as James Gordon, and Andy Serkis as Pennyworth. But one mysterious character made a brief appearance at one point in the film, and that is Barry Keoghan's mysterious character in Arkham Asylum.
Director Matt Reeves had already confirmed that Barry Keoghan is indeed the new Joker for his new Batverse. In a recent interview with IGN, Reeves sat down to discuss Keoghan's role in the film and the Batverse that he is still crafting.
Reeves teases, "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. So he’s very much out of the Conrad Veidt mold and that idea of the silent film of The Man Who Laughs.”
The director continued explaining why he opted to give Keoghan's Joker a biological condition for his smile, “He’s got this congenital disease. He can never stop smiling. And it made Mike and I think about — I was talking about The Elephant Man because I love David Lynch. And I was like, ‘Well, maybe there’s something here where it’s not something where he fell in a vat of chemicals or it’s not the Nolan thing where he has these scars and we don’t know where they came from. What if this is something that he’s been touched by from birth and that he has a congenital disease that refuses to let him stop smiling? And he’s had this very dark reaction to it, and he’s had to spend a life of people looking at him in a certain way and he knows how to get into your head.‘”
“So [it’s] this idea of him being very incisive and brilliant and being able to get into your mind and basically having this nihilistic point of view that’s like from his inception, from his birth, life has been a cruel joke on him. And this is his response, and he’s eventually going to declare himself as a clown, declare himself as the Joker. That was the idea.” Reeves added.
[SPOILER WARNING] When The Riddler was jailed by Batman and the Gotham Police, Riddler had sinister interactions with an inmate, who is later revealed to be The Joker especially when he did his classic villainous laugh. The quick glimpse on Keoghan's Joker features a scarred face, and a very wicked appearance compared to former Joker stars, Jared Leto and Heath Ledger.
Many fans pointed out that Keoghan's brief quick cameo was really on point and nailed each mannerism of the iconic antagonist of Batman. While the magnitude of playing DC's mad villain puts a massive pressure especially after Heath Ledger's perfect portrayal of The Joker, seeing Keoghan's portrayal solidifies a good future for The Batman reboot.
Matt Reeves also confirmed that The Batman spinoff, Gotham PD will focus on the Arkham Asylum, so it's safe to assume that Barry Keoghan will be back as The Joker, together with his newfound friend, The Riddler.
The Batman is now showing in theaters worldwide.
Also Read: The Batman: Gotham PD Spinoff Series Is Officially Cancelled
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