Wherever the Dark Knight goes, the Clown Prince of Crime is never too far behind, so it was inevitable that the rumor mill would dredge up all sorts of speculation touting the Joker as being part of The Batman, whether it was a brief tease or a full-blown cameo appearance.
Barry Keoghan has been luxuriating in the scuttlebutt for a while now, and a lot of you will get that answer later today when you catch Matt Reeves’ reboot on the big screen, but we’ve also heard some pretty wild and far-fetched theories touting a potential showdown between Robert Pattinson’s Caped Crusader and Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck.
Even though we’ve heard variations on the same story repeatedly, Todd Phillips’ Joker doesn’t have any sequels officially on the cards as of yet. However, that hasn’t stopped fans from dreaming up multiversal scenarios that involve the two arch-nemeses crossing paths.
Unfortunately, Reeves has poured ice-cold water on the chatter during a recent chat with Total Film.
“I was finishing the Planet of the Apes movies when I first came on board, in 2017. It’s been five years in the making. When I was working on the script, and got deep into the script, Joker hadn’t come out yet. I didn’t know what Joker was or what it was going to be. I became aware of it once we were very deep into the film, and the fact that they were grounding things in a way that was reminiscent of things that we were doing, that wasn’t planned. Joker was always meant to be a very specific standalone that Joaquin, and Todd were doing. There was never really any discussion of crossover.”
The Flash is poised to introduce the concept of alternate realities into mainline DCEU canon, but Joker and The Batman were always designed to operate independently of continuity. That doesn’t mean we won’t see Pattinson cross paths with the Jester of Genocide eventually, it’s just very unlikely to be Phoenix under the makeup.
