“The Batman” director Matt Reeves has revealed the origin story for his version of the Joker, who didn’t appear in the recent film but made an appearance in a newly published deleted scene.
Driving the news: Last week, Warner Bros. Pictures shared a deleted scene from “The Batman” that showed Batman speaking with the Joker at Arkham Asylum.
- The scene is rather dark, so make sure to view it with caution.
What happens: If you don’t want to watch, the idea of the scene is simple. Batman (Robert Pattinson) asks Joker (Barry Keoghan) about the Riddler. Batman asks the Joker for help in understanding Riddler and what’s happening.
- The scene shows us that the Joker already exists in this Batman universe and it shows Batman is not a new hero by the time this movie kicks off.
The origin story: Reeves said during a recent interview with Variety that the Joker’s origin story is tragic.
- “It’s like ‘Phantom of the Opera,’” Reeves said. “He has a congenital disease where he can’t stop smiling and it’s horrific. His face is half-covered through most of the film.”
- “It’s not about some version where he falls into a vat of chemicals and his face is distorted, or what (Christopher) Nolan did, where there’s some mystery to how he got these scars carved into his face,” Reeves said. “What if this guy from birth had this disease and he was cursed? He had this smile that people stared at that was grotesque and terrifying. Even as a child, people looked at him with horror, and his response was to say, ‘Okay, so a joke was played on me,’ and this was his nihilistic take on the world.”
The bigger picture: Reeves’ take on the Joker character is similar to the take from the 2019 film “Joker,” starring Joaquin Phoenix.
- Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck became the Joker after suffering from mental health issues and years of physical and mental abuse, as I wrote about for the Deseret News. The film attempted to tackle mental health issues but relied too much on violence to get the point across.
The bottom line: The Joker character has become increasingly more realistic with every new Batman film, which has led to even darker interpretations.