The Batman deleted scene reveals Barry Keoghan’s ghastly Joker in a face-off against Robert Pattinson’s Dark Knight. Watch here

Audiences that watched The Batman were in for a surprise cameo. Towards the end of the three-hour film, a mysterious character identified only as ‘Unnamed Arkham Prisoner’ in the credits was revealed to have struck a friendship with Paul Dano’s Riddler. Fans immediately deduced that the character was none other than the iconic Batman villain the Joker. Director Matt Reeves had previously said that there was another scene featuring the Joker in the film, but was deleted from the final cut. On Thursday, the filmmaker took to social media to share it with the world.
The 5-minute scene appears to have been scored and mixed, implying that it was a part of the cut until quite late in the editing process. Essentially a face-off between Robert Pattinson’s Batman and the Joker, played Barry Keoghan, the scene plays like the many confrontations that Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter had in The Silence of the Lambs. “Almost our anniversary, isn’t it?” Joker tells Batman in the scene.

Faced with a new enemy playing games with not just him, but the city of Gotham, Batman decides to consult the Joker. He appears in chains, and wearing prisoner uniform, as he speaks to the Dark Knight from behind a glass wall.
In terms of physical appearance, the Joker in Reeves’ version of the Batman universe seems to be both familiar and unique. He has patchy hair, scars on his mouth, but also appears to have a permanently plastered smile on his face. The scene ends with the Joker’s famous cackle, which we also heard in the actual film. Speaking more about the scene in an earlier interview with Variety, Reeves had said, “It’s a really creepy, cool scene. That was the scene that was meant to introduce this guy and just to tease the audience to go like, ‘Oh my god, he’s here too? And he’s not yet the Joker — what’s this going to be?’ And then it seems so delicious in the story, since we’d already set him up, to have the end of the story, the completion of the Riddler arc, be that he was in a cell next to this guy.”
Keoghan, who also recently appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Eternals, took to Twitter to express his excitement about the role, and wrote, “Honestly I am stuck for words but I am very very BLESSED to play this role after the AMAZING AMAZING Actors before me. Here’s my version. Enjoy.”

The iconic character has previously been played on the big screen Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, Jared Leto and Joaquin Phoenix. Both Ledger and Phoenix won Oscars for playing the character.
The Batman debuted early this month to positive reviews. The film has emerged as the biggest hit of the year, having made more than $600 million worldwide.