The Batman 2: Barry Keoghan Has Big Sequel Plans for the Joker

By Nathaniel Brail

Warner Bros. Discovery may have already decided on who will lead their DC Studios arm with James Gunn and Peter Safran sharing those duties as Co-CEOs, so you'd think that studio would want a new future for their franchise. That would be the case if they didn't have projects like Joker: Folie a Deux and even Matt Reeves' The Batman universe that both operate separately from the main DC Universe. Reeves' projects all seem to be safe, with the director signing an overall deal with the studio, and multiple spinoffs are already in development like The Penguin, a series set in Arkham Asylum, and even a GCPD series all set to be released on HBO Max. If the end of The Batman was any indication, we're definitely going to see the Riddler (Paul Dano) and the Joker (Barry Keoghan) again in the future. Whether or not that's the highly anticipated sequel is still to be determined. Keoghan recently did an interview with the New York Times where he revealed that he has big plans for the Joker if he appears in The Batman 2.

"It was intimidating, But if you stay true to yourself, that in itself is new. I know that sounds pretty lame, but I'm a big believer that if I'm myself, whatever I do is going to be completely fresh and unique," The Batman star revealed. "I already have a backstory that I've created in case it [The Batman 2] does happen — a totally fresh way of playing him."

Keoghan's Joker look has quickly been compared to the Death of the Family arc where the Joker's face is cut off and reattached, further disfiguring the criminal clown left with green hair, bleached white skin, and a permanent rictus grin after falling into a vat of acidic chemicals. Reeves revealed the inspiration for his take on the Joker: a homage to the mutilated mouth of Conrad Veidt's Gwynplaine in The Man Who Laughs, the 1928 silent film that influenced the DC Comics character. 

"He can never stop smiling. And it made Mike [Marino] and I think about — I was talking about The Elephant Man because I love David Lynch. And I was like, 'Well, maybe there's something here where it's not something where he fell in a vat of chemicals or it's not the [Christopher] Nolan thing where he has these scars and we don't know where they came from," Reeves explained. "What if this is something that he's been touched by from birth and that he has a congenital disease that refuses to let him stop smiling? And he's had this very dark reaction to it, and he's had to spend a life of people looking at him in a certain way and he knows how to get into your head.'"

Directed by Matt Reves, The Batman stars Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Paul Dano as Edward Nashton/the Riddler, Jeffrey Wright as GCPD's James Gordon, John Turturro as Carmine Falcone, Peter Sarsgaard as Gotham D.A. Gil Colson, Jayme Lawson as mayoral candidate Bella Reál, Andy Serkis as Alfred, and Colin Farrell as Oswald "Penguin" Cobblepot. The film is streaming on HBO Max now! 

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