The Batman flies to the box office: the secret of success (even if the Joker had to be)

It was not easy to find a formula capable of conquering the public fond of Christopher Nolan’s trilogy and perplexed by the performance of Ben Affleck, but Matt Reeves did it by acting by subtraction, bringing the Bat-Man epic back into a very human and very dark, very similar to that of Joker by Todd Phillips. The Batmanin fact, more than a movie about a superhero – yes, we know that Batman is not a real superhero and, in fact, we like it for that -, is a psychological thriller very close to the creatures raised and cared for with love by David Fincher, from Seven to Mindhunter. The dark photography, the near absence of the Batmobile, the incessant rain that digs into the bowels of Gotham City and an actor like Robert Pattinsonconsidered by many to be unsuitable even before seeing him in action, they were a great risk for Warner Bros. which, in this round, preferred to bet everything and for everything and offer the public a new Batman, more executioner and less hero, prey to human torments and a Shakespearean moral dilemma that manages to free itself only in the last bars of the film.

The result is there for all to see: after months and months of trouble except for Spider-Man: No Way Home – another superhero (this time real) -, The Batman conquers both the American box office, exceeding 128 million dollars in takings in less than a week of programmingthat the Italian one, which allows him to reach the beauty of 3,684,245 euros in just four days. The success of the public is also supported by the approval of a good slice of critics, who have decided to reward the courage of Reeves and Warner Bros. for choosing to take a new path that, inevitably, will certainly lead to new chapters, always with Pattinson as the protagonist. A peculiarity of this film, however, there is: it seems, in fact, that, in addition to the Riddler brilliantly played by Paul Dano and the Penguin played by an unrecognizable Colin Farrell, Joker should also have found space within the film which, at the last minute, Reeves decided to confine only in one of the last scenes of the filmwhen the Riddler, locked inside Arkham Asylum, makes the acquaintance of an inmate with a disturbing laugh with whom he begins to lay the foundations of a very dangerous friendship.

The latter is, in fact, Joker, played by Barry Keoghan who, however, in the credits of the film is credited as “Inmate of Arkham” and not as “Joker”. In an interview with Varietythe director explained that, in the original plan, Joker should have taken on a more prominent role within the film but who, at the last minute, decided to cut almost all the scenes starring Keoghan because he was afraid of putting too much meat on the fire. In particular, there should have been a sequence in which Batman would have gone to Arkham to talk to the Joker in an attempt to somehow enter the mind of the Riddler to anticipate his moves. “It’s not an Eeaster Egg, it’s not one of those Marvel or DC credits scenes where you say, ‘Here’s the next movie,'” Reeves hastened to clarify. which, however, did not rule out that Joker could be central in a new chapter nor that he hasn’t thought of a spin-off series dedicated to Arkham Asylum that could be available on a platform like HBO Max. «The idea was to say,“ Hey, look, if you think the problems will disappear from Gotham, you can forget it. Because there is also Joker “”, he said about the desire to keep that one scene that sees Joker with a makeup very similar to that of Conrad Veidt in the silent film The Man Who Laughs by Paul Leni, based on the novel by Victor Hugo. Whether we see Keoghan – who auditioned for the role of a Gotham cop loyal to Gordon – still as the Joker, though, is yet to be seen.

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