The most recent ‘Comic Con@Home’ event has proven a goldmine for fans, with tonnes of tales of ‘what could have been’, planned sequels that never happened and alternate takes on established properties.
One of the panels that caught my eye involved Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Co-Writer David S. Goyer. He was questioned at length about his involvement in the Batman movies, an alternate ending for Man of Steel and all manner of subjects from his long career.
One story that caught my eye involved the Warner Brothers Heads asking for The Joker to have an origin story in the movie. They felt you needed to understand where this monster came from, and give some sort of reasoning for why he turned out that way. Director Christopher Nolan and Goyer had other ideas…
As Goyer himself says –
“I do remember when we were talking about, ‘Well what if the Joker doesn’t really have an origin story?’. Even after the success of Batman Begins that was considered a very controversial thing and we got a lot of push-back. People were worried.
There were a lot more eyes, both in terms of the world and the studio on that film than there were on Batman Begins. And it’s harder to take risks and it’s harder to subvert expectations in success because people want to protect against failure or they want you to do what you did the first time, but just a little bit different.
One of the scariest things to tell most film executives or even TV executives after having had success in something is, ‘Yeah, we’re not going to do that again. We’re going to do something different’.”
Having just recently caught The Dark Knight again on the Big Screen (Well, if there was one movie that was going to get me back into a cinema….), it’s clear that Nolan and Goyer had the right idea. Ledger’s Joker being an agent of chaos who simply exists as a force of nature was inspired. Ledger committed fully to the role, and with no hope of redemption or understanding for the character, you never knew what he was going to do next.
I always hated the origin given to Joker in Batman ’89, as it made it way too convenient that he was responsible for the murder of Bruce’s parents. The alternate take in Todd Phillip’s recent Joker movie with Joaquin Phoenix was brilliantly executed however, and proved that an origin story could work.
However, for this fan, I will always be a fan of the Joker’s origin being ‘multiple choice’, an idea that Nolan and Goyer doubled down on with the multiple ‘Do you wanna know how I got these scars?’ scenes.
So the moral of the story? Ignore the money men at the top and leave these choices in the hands of the creative people…..
Until next time……
Alan