The Batman Deleted Scene Reveals A Talk With The Joker At Arkham

The deleted scene with the Joker is a whopping five minutes long, meaning that if it had been included, The Batman would have been a gargantuan 2 hours and 52 minutes long. It features Batman heading to Arkham on the “anniversary” of his meeting the Joker so that he can pick his brain about the Riddler. We never get a clear look at the character, with shots showing his face blurred behind the protective glass or partially obscured, but this Joker seems horribly scarred all over, with thinning hair and bloody fingernails. Barry Keoghan is the man playing the Joker, but his interpretation seems deeply rooted in Heath Ledger’s character-defining take on the role. There’s a bit of Mark Hamill’s voice from Batman: The Animated Series as well, but the Ledger influence is obvious, down to the scarring helping to create the Joker’s trademark smile. Director Matt Reeves has said that he doesn’t have any plans to bring the character back for the sequel, claiming his brief cameo in the film wasn’t a Marvel-style tease, but that seems far less likely with this clip now released. I have a theory, in fact, that this deleted scene isn’t a deleted scene at all. Supposedly, the scene was supposed to come sometime after the Riddler had killed Gotham’s commissioner as Batman struggles to find answers. However, Reeves, who co-wrote the screenplay, would have seen quickly that it didn’t fit and probably not shot it at all. Instead, this feels like a post-credits sequence without being a post-credits sequence — something that was shot not to be in the film but instead as a marketing teaser to keep the excitement up without looking like it’s just copying Marvel. Obviously, it’s effective regardless, because here we are talking about it.