The Batman Director Releases Deleted Joker Scene

The Batman has a deleted Joker scene that sees Robert Pattinson's Batman meet The Joker for the first time – now director Matt Reeves and Warner Bros. Pictures have just released it online! Watch it above! Marvel's Eternals star Barry Keoghan famously played Joker in a (mostly) unseen cameo role at the end of The Batman when he and Paul Dano's Riddler became cell neighbors at Arkham Asylum. Well, in this deleted scene, Batman and Joker get a lot closer for a classic interrogation through the glass, as Joker helps Batman form a profile on The Riddler. 

Keoghan has reacted to the release of this Joker deleted scene by saying he has "No words" about what Matt Reeves achieved with it. 

Reeves has previously spoken about the decision to include Joker in The Batman, making it clear to fans that it was a decision made in order to help flesh out and establish his version of Gotham City as one already in the process of seeing Batman's rogues gallery take shape:

"It's not an Easter egg scene," Reeves 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 thought it'd be really neat if so much of the fabric of Gotham just already existed."

"...I never was trying to say like, 'Hey, guess what, here's the Joker. Next movie!'" he added. "The idea was more to say, 'Hey, look, if you think that trouble is going to go away in Gotham, you can forget it. It's already here. And it's already delicious.'"

In that sense, it is curious that Reeves chose to cut this lengthy sequence from the final film. It definitely does the job of helping to establish that Pattinson's Batman is part of an already-established universe of Batman lore, which already has his own Joker. That said, including this scene would've been problematic for several reasons: 

1. Showing this much longer scene of Keoghan playing Joker would've firmly established the actor as THE Joker of The Batman franchise. Warner Bros. may not be behind that kind of commitment. 
2. Bringing out Joker full-force would've definitely distracted fans from the primary villains of Paul Dano's Riddler John Turturro's Carmine Falcone, and Colin Farrell's Penguin – who all deserved their time to shine.

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