[This article contains serious, big-time spoilers for The Batman, including one scene that isn’t in the movie, but which is likely to be released at some point. Consider yourself warned.]
At this point, it’s not entirely clear what Warner Media’s franchise ambitions are for The Batman. (Though the fact that the film is already on track to peak at the box office in the COVID era suggests it will eventually start and stop at “Yes, please!”) The Matt Reeves film exists in a strange space at the company. larger superhero projects, clearly out of step with both the Snyderverse films and Joaquin Phoenix’s billion-dollar Joker project. (That said, Reeves is clearly happy to continue playing in space, judging by the Penguin spin-off series.)
Any speculation about a sequel will likely be fueled by the film’s penultimate scene, in which the Riddler Paul Dano is thrown into Arkham Asylum, only to be comforted by an invisible but giggling guy in an adjacent cell, clearly voiced (and played as a silhouette). ) actor Barry Keoghan. Although he was listed in the original casting notes as playing a cop in the movie, fans pretty quickly guessed that Keoghan might be playing the movie’s version of the iconic crime clown Joker, both through a few small hints on social media and also because, well , who else would you choose Barry Keoghan in the Batman universe? (Seriously: go watch The Green Knight again and tell us he doesn’t play a medieval joker jerk in all but name.)
Now, Reeves was interviewed by Variety this weekend, swearing by heaven that Keoghan is in the film for more than just trying to create a future Batman sequel. “This is not an Easter egg scene,” Reeves says. “This isn’t one of those scenes in the end credits of Marvel or DC where it goes like, ‘Hey, here’s the next movie!’ In fact, I have no idea when we will return to this character in the movies.”
True or not, Reeves also points out that Keoghan actually filmed another scene for the movie, the one where he and Robert Pattinson’s Batman have an equally secretive conversation. Said conversation was supposed to take place much earlier in the movie, when the Pats-Bats sneaked into Arkham to spend some time in The Silence of the Lambs with an unseen assassin while trying to get inside the Riddler’s head. Notably, the scene appears to include a line from the future Joker: “It’s almost our anniversary,” sketching out the backstory for this version of Gotham.
Reeves says he cut the scene because it was deemed unnecessary in the three-hour film, but notes that he will likely release it in one form or another at some point. As for any new Keoghan Joker material, Reeves emphasizes that this is an open question. “Perhaps there are places. There are things I’m very interested in doing in Arkham space, maybe for HBO Max. There are things we talked about there. So it’s very possible. It’s also possible that there is some kind of story that goes back to where the Joker appears in our world.”