Written by Edwin Francisco
The Batman‘s movie cast listing revealed the next Joker.
Last year Warner Bros. announced that Barry Keoghan is Officer Stanley Merkel. In the comics, Merkel is Jim Gordon’s partner during his early years in the service. Writer/artist Frank Miller created him for Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986). But the character only got into canon in Batman No. 405 in 1987. Miller wrote that as well.
Recently, Warner Bros has released the official cast listing. But they listed Keoghan as “Unseen Arkham Prisoner.” It was quite jarring to see the major change. From a known character to an unknown prisoner? It seems suspicious. to say the least.
Keoghan has acted for a decade now. He has been seen in several-high profile projects like HBO’s Chernobyl, Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, and Marvel’s Eternals.
We know he has the acting capability. After all, he is multi-awarded for his talents. So, why the shift? Is Warner Bros. hiding something? Did his role shift during production? If so, was the role shift intentional to mislead the fans?
The Batman Movie Cast Listing Reveals The Joker
An Unseen Arkham Prisoner with a prosthetic design playing by Barry Keoghan 🤔 #TheBatman pic.twitter.com/x5Go1LTiGW
— The Batman Film News 🦇 (@TheBatmanFilm_) February 16, 2022
However, there is no question that fans speculated he’s portraying the Joker.
We all know that the Penguin (Colin Farrell) and the Riddler (Paul Dano) are the main villains of The Batman.
Batman has a lot of psychotic villains, no question. If the official cast listing is true, then who is Barry Keoghan’s role? Why would you even announce it as “Unseen?”
Fans are convinced that he is the new Joker. Why? The official listing drops a clue. Mike Mariano is the one who made the prosthetics for the Penguin and Unseen Arkham Prisoner.
We’ve seen Colin Farrell’s version of the Penguin. In fact, it’s actually incredible. He’s convincing and unrecognizable as Farrell. The Batman is grounded in reality, much like Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. So we wonder who the Batman villain that needs prosthetics to define the character.
We can only think of a few, like Killer Croc, Man-Bat, Clayface, Two-Face, and the Joker. While Killer Croc, Man-Bat, and Clayface may be too much into the fantasy realm. Also, the three of them have known origins.
Image: DC Comics
Two-Face and the Joker might be the likely villains. But then again, introducing Two-Face may be too early. Two-Face, also known as Harvey Dent, has this level of trust between him and Batman before he became a villain.
While all other bad guys have a clear background, the Joker’s is unknown. Even in the comics, it’s still vague who he is. Yes, we’ve seen how he turned into Joker in The Killing Joke. Regardless, we still didn’t know who he was.
Jared Leto previously played the Joker in the DCEU. We last saw him in Zack Snyder’s Justice League on HBO Max.
Nevertheless, Leto wasn’t able to portray the Joker the way he wanted. It just feels like a missed potential. Joaquin Phoenix won an Oscar for playing him in Joker. In other words, there’s so much pressure there.
Will Keoghan reach such acting heights?