He has to keep doing what he’s gonna do.” It changed people’s response to the very ending of the movie, to see that Gotham was still Gotham, and that Batman really didn’t have a choice. “And I think it wasn’t just that people enjoyed seeing that character. “I initially tested it without it when I put it back in, the scores for the ending went back up,” he says. So he put the Joker-Riddler scene back in. ![]() It didn’t feel the same.” Reeves also didn’t like losing the final beat of the Riddler’s arc, in which, after a lifetime of neglect and isolation, he finally finds a compatriot - albeit a murderous psychopath. “You kind of felt like, well, C ouldn’t you just go with her? Go with her! What’s the problem? What’s wrong with you?! It changed the emotional stakes. “Because when Selena is saying to him, ‘This place is never going to change,’ you hadn’t seen that, in fact, trouble was already brewing,” Reeves says. When he tested the movie, however, he realized that losing the Joker and Riddler’s meet creep (to tweak a common phrase) affected the final scene of the film - in which Selina implores Batman to leave Gotham with her, knowing he’s fated to stay and fight for his city. “That was the scene that was meant to introduce this guy and just to tease the audience to go like, ‘Oh my god, he’s here too? And he’s not yet the Joker - what’s this going to be?’ And then it seems so delicious in the story, since we’d already set him up, to have the end of the story, the completion of the Riddler arc, be that he was in a cell next to this guy.”īut when Reeves cut the first scene, he thought the second scene with the Riddler would need to go as well - cutting Keoghan out of the movie entirely. “It’s a really creepy, cool scene,” he says. “It was one of those scenes where, given how complex the narrative was, by taking it out, it kept the story moving in a way it needed to.” Ultimately, however, Reeves felt that the scene hit the same beat accomplished elsewhere in the movie. “What he’s really doing is getting into Batman’s head,” he says. Joker’s reply, as relayed by Reeves: “What do you mean, you want to know how he thinks? You guys think the same.” “You realize that they have a relationship, and that this guy obviously did something, and Batman somehow got him into Arkham.”Īs they talk, Batman tells Joker he wants to know how Riddler thinks. “And this guy says, ‘It’s almost our anniversary, isn’t it?'” says Reeves. So Reeves shot a scene in which Batman snuck inside Arkham, arriving at the door of a specific inmate. “I thought he would be really insecure about this and he’d probably want to find some way to get into the mindset, like in ‘Manhunter’ or ‘Mindhunter’ - this idea of profiling somebody, so you can predict his next move,” says Reeves. Between the Riddler’s notes casting an uncomfortable spotlight on Batman and the discovery that the Riddler is killing city leaders neck-deep in corruption, Batman finds himself unnerved over what to make of what the Riddler is doing. In an early cut of “The Batman,” Keoghan actually showed up much earlier, in a scene following the revelation that the Riddler has killed the Gotham City police commissioner (before Jeffrey Wright’s Jim Gordon gets the job) and left behind yet another note addressed to the Batman. Courtesy Everett Collection “It’s Almost Our Anniversary, Isn’t It?” “It’s not one of those end credits Marvel or DC scenes where it’s going, like, ‘Hey, here’s the next movie!’ In fact, I have no idea when or if we would return to that character in the movies.” While it may seem obvious that Reeves placed this scene at the end of “The Batman” to set up Keoghan as the lead villain for the inevitable sequel, the director was quick to explain that not only was that not his intention, he is in no way convinced that Keoghan’s Joker will appear in any more “Batman” movies. The character, played by Barry Keoghan (“Eternals,” “The Killing of a Sacred Deer”), is credited as “Unseen Arkham Inmate.” But any astute Batman fan - or, for that matter, Batman neophyte - will know who this inmate is meant to be. The next, you’re a clown.” As the camera pulls back, Riddler and the inmate dissolve into laughter and a new, wicked friendship is born. As he wails in anguish, a voice from the cell next to his whispers from the door. That feeling is no better demonstrated than in the penultimate scene of the movie, after Dano’s Riddler has been locked up in Arkham Asylum, struck by despair that his grand plan to destroy Gotham has been foiled by Batman. gangster movie and if you took a certain turn, you might see a character in his origins.” “I thought it’d be really neat if so much of the fabric of Gotham just already existed,” Reeves tells Variety.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |