The much anticipated The Batman film from director Matt Reeves and starring Robert Pattinson as the titular character hit theaters earlier this month. And despite some criticisms, particularly the massive 3-hour runtime, the general consensus among fans and moviegoers agree that it’s a triumphant take on the Dark Knight. It’s hard to imagine that Reeves’ original cut was over 4-hours long.

THE BATMAN

SPOILER WARNING

I’m going to go out on a limb that majority of Beat readers have either seen The Batman but your obligatory spoiler warning. By the end of the film, Edward Nashton a.k.a The Riddler (played by Paul Dano) is locked up in Arkham Asylum in despair due to Batman foiling his master plan. While wallowing in despair, a mysterious voice in the next cell offers friendship cryptically saying, “One day you’re on top. The next, you’re a clown.”

The unnamed Arkham inmate laughs maniacally and a new friendship is born. You don’t have to be the world’s greatest detective to realize that this character is in fact The Joker, played by Barry Keoghan and credited as “Unseen Arkham Prisoner.”

It’s a scene that seemed not entirely necessary or better served as a a mid or post-credits scene. As Reeves revealed in an interview with Variety, “I thought it’d be really neat if so much of the fabric of Gotham just already existed,” Reeves tells Variety. “And it was like an old Warner Bros. gangster movie and if you took a certain turn, you might see a character in his origins.”

In fact, Keoghan had filmed more scenes that were ultimately cut. Today Matt Reeves released a deleted scene featuring Caped Crusader visiting The Joker at Arkham in order to get insight into what makes the Riddler tick à la Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs.

It’s a scene that calls to mind Calendar Man’s role in the classic Batman: The Long Halloween comic miniseries, which not only influenced The Batman film but was also adapted into an animated feature last year.

According to Reeves, this scene took place Riddler has killed Gotham City police commissioner Pete Savage.

“I thought he would be really insecure about this and he’d probably want to find some way to get into the [Riddler’s] mindset, like in ‘Manhunter’ or ‘Mindhunter’ — this idea of profiling somebody, so you can predict his next move.”

However, Reeves felt that the scene “wasn’t necessary,” and he ultimately cut it.

The question on everyone’s minds is where next will we see Barry Keoghan reprise Unseen Arkham Prisoner The Joker. Reeves himself has denied bringing back Keoghan as the Clown Prince of Crime back for a potential sequel. The most likely project is the upcoming Arkham HBO Max original series currently in development or even possibly the Colin Farrell Penguin spin-off series.