In the final moments of The Batman, we see a captured Riddler (Paul Dano) in Arkham Asylum. His master plan foiled, he begins to break down. Another inmate speaks to him through his cell in an attempt to comfort him. “What is it they say?” the inmate whispers. “One day you’re on top, the next, you’re a clown.” We then hear that familiar maniacal laughter and we know we have just met The Joker. Director Matt Reeves revealed that there was another scene with The Joker, played by Barry Keoghan of The Killing of a Sacred Deer acclaim, but he decided not to include it in the final cut of the film. “I didn’t think that within the larger narrative it worked, that it was necessary,” he told Collider.
He excited fans, however, when he said, “This was a really cool scene, and what Barry and what Rob did in that scene was super cool. So at some point, I definitely want the audience to see that scene…We’ll do something with it. I mean, look, we’ve just finished the movie. We’re now promoting the movie. We’re figuring out what’s going to happen when everything goes into sort of the home video version of it, but there’s definitely a plan to do something with it. We for sure will show that scene.”
Reeves lived up to his promise, as the full five-minute deleted scene between Robert Pattinson’s Batman and Keoghan’s Joker was recently released. We meet The Clown Prince of Crime in a clip intended to happen right after the predecessor to Jeffrey Wright’s Gotham City Police Commissioner is killed. Having just received another note addressed to him from The Riddler, a desperate Batman, in search of answers and insight, goes to Arkham Asylum to pay The Joker a visit.
Keoghan’s Joker is first shown standing from behind, clad in a prison jumpsuit, restraints around his neck, his hair a crazed mess. He is in a cell, a chained barrier keeping him and The Caped Crusader apart. When Batman puts his Riddler files in a slot, The Joker lumbers closer, intrigued. It then cuts to showing The Joker from the front but held just out of focus so that we can’t entirely make out his features. Enough is seen though. His eyes are dark, but his skin is pale, an insane, disjointed grin plastered to his face. “Present. Almost our anniversary, isn’t it?” he whispers. There is a hint of Heath Ledger’s cadence in his words, but it’s not mimicry.
The Batman asks for his perspective into a serial killer, and with deformed hands, Joker picks up the documents Batman has brought. “First anniversary is paper. What makes you think I come so cheap?” he dryly jokes. The Joker goes through the files and begins to light up as we see now that the sickly marks on his skin also spread to his scalp, the hair in some places completely ripped out. Reeves has said that the inspiration behind the look is not to be of a scarred man, but one carrying a disease. “He’s a nobody who wants to be somebody,” Joker says of The Riddler. “Maybe he’s a fan of yours,” he answers when Batman asks why he’s writing to him. The Joker laughs. He’s found a way to get to the man who put him here. “Maybe you’re the main course.”
When Batman tells him he has no theories yet on who The Riddler is, Joker is surprised. He loves it. Batman is showing weakness. He pounces on this, enjoying himself, but Batman deflects back to the reason he’s here. “Why?” an excited Joker asks. “You’re so much more fun.” Joker plays along though, and when asked how The Riddler thinks, he says that Riddler and Batman have so much in common. “Masked avengers. So he’s even more righteous. Are you afraid he makes you look soft?”
The Joker loses it, putting his head down on the table, cackling maniacally. A frustrated Batman gets up and begins to walk away, but stops as Joker composes himself. The camera zooms in on Joker now, even if only in pieces, giving us first closeups of his eyes and the deep wrinkles digging into his flesh, then his mouth, the lips grotesquely swollen, a smile exposing his chipped, crooked teeth. “I think somewhere deep down you’re just terrified because you’re not sure he’s wrong. You think they deserved it.” He laughs even harder now. The game is so much fun.
Batman has his back to him. He won’t turn around and face Joker again, but the audience can see his face. In his eyes there is doubt. The Batman is broken and Joker may be right about him. That ability to get to him like no one else can is what makes the Harlequin of Hate Batman’s ultimate nemesis. Even if we never get to see it on the big screen in this latest take, they are destined to play this game forever.