A Batman Fan Spotted a Minor Detail in The Joker Scene That May Tease His Escape

The Batman has released a deleted scene featuring The Joker (Barry Keoghan) and Batman (Robert Pattinson) sitting down for a chat in Gotham’s Arkham Asylum. In a scene reminiscent of Silence of the Lambs, the relatively inexperienced Batman comes to Joker to get the psycho’s profile of a different serial killer: The Riddler (Paul Dano). Well, after picking over the scene and highlighting every detail of Keoghan’s Joker, DC fans have also picked up on a detail of the scene that could tease Joker’s imminent escape! 

As you can see in the viral tweet above, Batman gives Joker a file on Riddler that has many parts to it – all attached and organized by paper clips. When Joker returns the file, however, that same paperwork is missing some paper clips. Again, it’s a trick that Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter uses in Silence of the Lambs to get a key escape tool (a pen) off his nemesis Dr. Freerick Chilton (Anthony Heald) – and one that arguably suggests Pattinson’s Batman has a lot to learn about basic prisoner interaction/interrogation protocol. Pretty big detail for the “World’s Greatest Detective” to miss…

Nitpicking aside, Joker’s clear sleight-of-hand could also be viewed as a testament to Reeves’ deeper understanding of the characters. Joker is arguably able to secure his escape tools by borrowing deep inside of Batman’s head when he turns his profiling eye from Riddler to the vigilante hero. It could be that this Joker’s mind tricks are one of his most formidable weapons, and he totally had an ulterior agenda for riling Batman up. Or, better yet, Joker is smashing two birds with one stone: mind-screwing the man who locked him up, while also getting off on using Batman’s emotional turmoil to secure his own escape. 

Of course, this new detail of the scene only furthers the logic of why Matt Reeves cut Keoghan’s big Joker scene down to a teaser cameo at the end of the film. This scene would’ve not only forced The Batman franchise to fully commit to Keoghan as Joker and his mangled-face character design in future sequels, it would’ve set an arc for Joker in motion that would have to carry through both the Arkham Asylum and Penguin TV series spinoffs in development for HBO Max.

For now, this Joker deleted scene from The Batman is clear indication of just how well Matt Reeves gets the characters – and what fun things he may do with them in the future. 

The Batman is now in theaters – it will start streaming on HBO Max on April 25th.