Director Matt Reeves surprises fans with an unseen scene, cut from “The Batman”, confronting the dark knight Robert Pattison with the Joker camped by Barry Keoghan.
The character was obviously expected and watched by all fans of the DC universe. He only made a furtive (and essentially vocal) appearance in The Batman, at the very end of the feature film when a disturbing conversation takes place between the Riddler (Paul Dano) and an Arkham inmate who offers him his friendship… as well as an instantly recognizable laugh.
Very open during the promotion of the feature film, which currently dominates the American and French box offices, the director Matt Reeves had willingly confided in our microphone on the reduced presence of the Joker in his film, camped by a Barry Keoghan (seen especially in The Eternals) unrecognizable.
“The character was originally supposed to appear earlier, in another scene, but it’s all about context: I didn’t want to do a Batman origin story, because I felt it had been done, and very well, in several other scenes. movies. (…) This character in Arkham refers to the Joker before he was the Joker. He has not yet decided to claim this concept. But I wanted to make him someone that Batman met in his freshman year, and got locked up because he was a killer.”
It is precisely this scene, 5 minutes long, that the filmmaker offers today to the spectators. A gift accessible through three puzzles posted on the site www.rataalada.com… but available below for those who are not fond of “Riddler” style puzzles. We discover a Batman (Robert Pattinson) in search of answers who, like Clarice Starling consulting Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, turns to his best enemy to decipher the actions of the Riddler.
“Because Batman was disturbed by the Riddler writing to him, he had to go to Arkham to try to establish his profile, see if he could get into his mindset to understand the reasons for these letters”, Explain Matt Reeves.
“When he goes to the asylum, the Joker who is locked up – but who is not the Joker because there is none – manages to read in Batman: ‘Why do you wonder why he is writing to you? ? You are exactly the same, both masked vigilantes.’ He draws a comparison between the two, and Batman is so pissed off by the idea that he rejects it.”
“The scene was originally in the movie, and Barry Keoghan was great, as was Robert Pattinson. But seeing how big the movie is, I ended up realizing she didn’t need to be there. I Still kept his second scene. Because it marked the end of the Riddler arc, but also because it showed that more trouble was brewing.”
If he never fully reveals himself, hidden behind the glass of the interrogation room, the Joker version Barry Keoghan offers a whole new vision of the character, different from the incarnations of Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, Jared Leto or Joaquin Phoenix. The clown is disfigured here, his hands, hair and face burned with acid, and madness pervades each of his lines, right up to his final laugh.