After Justice League: Gods and Monsters hits stores on July 28th, DC Animation has another attention-grabbing project in the works. It was announced on stage at the Gods & Monsters premiere, that the studio would next be tackling Alan Moore and Brian Bolland‘s The Killing Joke, the most infamous of Joker stories.
There’s been no word on casting, but if I had to predict, I could easily see this as the final pairing of Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill as Batman and the Joker respectively. Hamill has long wanted to voice his iconic role in an adaptation of this story, and even took to twitter a few years back in response to a fan on the topic:
I’d come back for THAT! Spread the word! Campaign for #TheKillingJoke!! RT: @Cha_Luz#DC lets see #TheKillingJoke Mark said hed voice Joker
— Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) October 24, 2011
Though, SPOILERS…………………………………..
He’s already come back, if you count his performance in Batman: Arkham Knight, which of course you should.
We’ll see how it shakes out, I’m not a fan of the Moore-Bolland story, though I appreciate the elements that the “One Bad Day/Multiple Choice” side of the story have brought to the Batman mythos. I’m just a little surprised, given the recent controversy surrounding the Rafael Albuquerque‘s Batgirl variant cover, and some of the thoughtful discussions around the content of The Killing Joke that it inspired, that DC would move forward with such an adaptation. I’m also not sure there’s enough there fill up 75 minutes of movie, but perhaps they’ll add in some b-plot.
But, as always, sales talk and the last few releases, Justice League: Throne of Atlantis and Batman vs. Robin, each sold a bit over 3 million units respectively. Given that the first part of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns moved over 5 million units, I imagine the studio is trying to recapture that same audience.
On that same note, DC also announced that following The Killing Joke, their next projects to follow would be Batman: Bad Blood and Justice League vs. Titans. Both are set to release in 2016, with the former focusing on Batwoman.
More Batwoman anywhere is a very good thing.
