‘The Batman’: Matt Reeves Releases His Deleted Joker Scene Starring Barry Keoghan

“The Batman” is clearly a massive hit and already has fans desperate to know more about future plans for sequels. To that end, and as teased in the past, Warner Bros. and director Matt Reeves have released the Joker teaser scene starring Irish actor Barry Keoghan as the iconic villain at Arkham Asylum facing-off with Robert Pattinson’s Batman. It’s an interrogation prison scene reminiscent of “Silence Of The Lambs,” where a hunter goes to a madman to help him find his prey. In the clip, the Joker discusses their meeting being “almost our anniversary,” which suggests the date which Batman first caught him and incarcerated him in Arkham.

Director Matt Reeves spoke with IGN early in the month, dishing more details behind the sequence.

“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 said. “And for me, I think [it’s] this idea that the Joker is not yet the Joker, but they already have this relationship.”

READ MORE:’The Batman’: Matt Reeves Says Gotham City PD Spinoff Has “Evolved” Into An Arkham “Haunted House” Series

“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,” 

As suggested, the filmmaker compares the scene to Jonathan Demme’s “The Silence of The Lambs,” having a Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter-like turn but set within the world of Gotham City (the recent Bond “No Time To Die” movie has a similar scene too).

“He goes to see another killer that he’s clearly had an experience [with] within these first two years. And this killer in this story is not yet the character that we come to know, right?” Reeves continued. “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.”

While not official, “The Batman” is rumored to hit HBO Max in April; we’ll be waiting on an announcement. Watch the “Deleted Arkham Scene” below.