The Batman director explains that [REDACTED] cameo

The Batman is out now in theaters, and it’s pleasing critics and fans alike. Director Matt Reeves’ dark, gritty noir take on Gotham achieved exactly what it set out to do: tell a story about Batman early in his career as a crime fighter who’s still figuring out what exactly he wants to represent to the world at large. The film features plenty notable characters from the Batman mythos, including a serial killer-inspired version of The Riddler (Paul Dano), The Penguin (Colin Farrell) and Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz).

If you’ve seen the movie, then you know there’s another pretty notable appearance. We’re going to be getting into a major SPOILER for The Batman below, because Reeves recently shed a bit more light on this surprise cameo, how it came to be in the movie, and what he was originally planning for the character.

The surprise villain cameo in The Batman isn’t setting up a sequel

While many Batman movies have shown the Caped Crusader’s origin, Reeves wanted to change things up in The Batman by having it serve as more of an origin story for some of his most famous enemies. Thus we see the Penguin, the Riddler, and Catwoman all in the early days of their criminal careers.

The other villain who made a brief appearance in the movie is the Joker, played by Barry Keoghan (Eternals). In one of the final scenes of the movie, we see the Riddler locked up in Arkham Asylum, lamenting how Batman foiled his plans. The inmate in the cell next to him begins talking to him, and we see the beginnings of a deranged friendship. Keoghan is credited as “Unnamed Arkham Inmate,” and is hardly visible through the thick glass of his cell door. But from his commentary on how life can make you “a clown” and his hysterical laughter, it’s easy to infer that he’s playing the Joker. Reeves has since confirmed as much.

Ending stingers have become de rigueur in superhero movies today, with Marvel leading the way. But Reeves emphasizes that this was never his intent with the Joker scene. “It’s not an Easter egg scene,” he told Variety. “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.”

"I said to Barry [Keoghan], right from the beginning, ‘Look, I don’t know where this is going to go. I can’t promise that it’ll even ever come back. I don’t know.’ And I still feel that way now. I’m not sure exactly. There’s stuff I’m very interested in doing in an Arkham space, potentially for HBO Max. There are things we’ve talked about there. So it’s very possible. It also isn’t impossible, that there is some story that comes back where Joker comes into our world."

The Joker’s deleted scene in The Batman will be released “at some point”

As it turns out, the Joker originally had a slightly more substantial role to play in the film. “What’s interesting is that the reason that Joker’s in the movie is there was actually another scene that was earlier. And because the movie is not an origin tale for Batman, but it’s his early days, it really is an origin tale for the Rogue’s Gallery’s characters,” Reeves told IGN. “And for me, I think [it’s] this idea that the Joker is not yet the Joker, but they already have this relationship.

"The scene that was not in the movie, the scene that this is really the companion to, which is actually a really cool scene that will release at some point, it’s a scene where Batman is so unnerved because the Riddler is writing to him. And he’s like, ‘Well, why is this guy writing to me?’ And he figures he’s got to profile this killer."

In need of another psychotic perspective on the Riddler’s actions, Batman sneaks into Arkham and has a scene reminiscent of The Silence of the Lambs where he approaches the Joker’s cell to ask for advice. “And this guy says, ‘It’s almost our anniversary, isn’t it?’” Reeves explains. “You realize that they have a relationship, and that this guy obviously did something, and Batman somehow got him into Arkham…And this killer in this story is not yet the character that we come to know, right? So everybody’s in their infancy. So in the comics, these characters often declare their alter egos in response to the fact that there’s a Batman out there. And so here, we have a Joker who’s not yet the Joker.”

"It’s a really creepy, cool scene. 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."

So what advice does the Joker give Batman? Apparently, nothing helpful. When Batman asks for the Joker’s help in understanding how the Riddler thinks, the Joker responds, “What do you mean, you want to know how he thinks? You guys think the same.”

"What he’s really doing is getting into Batman’s head. And [Batman] is resisting this idea violently. And so that’s what that scene was. It was a scene to unsettle him."

Why the Joker stayed in the movie

Cutting that first scene with the Joker was a difficult decision, but ultimately one Reeves felt served the movie better. The idea that the Joker puts forth — that Batman and the Riddler are both trying to solve the same problem but from different angles — is one that crops up in other parts on the movie.

“I actually took the scene that’s in the movie still out for a brief time,” Reeves revealed. “And we tested it, and I realized that for me, on the one hand, it finishes the Riddler’s arc, because you know the way his story plays out and you see him in the wake of what’s happened and how Batman has been able to thwart what he was doing.”

"But it was also this idea that in this moment, now that the stranglehold of Falcone has been broken, it means that there is a moment of not only hope, but it’s also the moment of greatest danger in the city in a long time because it means that everyone is going to grab for power. And when Selina [Kyle] is talking to Batman at the end of the movie and they’re having their very poignant goodbye because they’re always going to be on the opposite sides of things, she says to him, ‘You know this place isn’t going to change.’ And when I took the scene out, the stakes of the scene changed, because that scene shows you that, when she says that, you’ve just seen it and you see the two of them [Joker and Riddler] next to each other. And that’s just one example of how trouble in Gotham is never going to subside. There’s always going to be somebody with a plan afoot.And so it changed the movie dramatically. So the scene is not meant to be there to say, ‘Oh, here’s an Easter egg. The next movie is X.’ I don’t know that the Joker would be in the next movie, but I can tell you that here’s what you’re seeing, is an early days version of this character, and trouble, as always, is brewing in Gotham."

The Batman is now playing exclusively in theaters. Check out our review of the film here.

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h/t Variety, IGN