Tag Archives: Joker

Movies

Heath Ledger…

Over at slashfilm.com and in an article written by Hoai-Tran Bui concerning…

Heath Ledger had planned to return as the Joker after The Dark Knight

While I don’t want to spoil the article, which itself is lifted from a news.com.au article, features an interview with Kate Ledger, Heath Ledger’s sister, who states that indeed it was Mr. Ledger’s intention to return as the Joker in the next Christopher Nolan directed Batman film.

A true shame.

I know there are those who don’t like the third Nolan Batman film, but I’m not one of them.  I don’t feel the film was superb (I’d tend to agree with most fans and critics that The Dark Knight, the second film in the trilogy and the one featuring Mr. Ledger as the Joker, was the overall best of the lot), mind you, but I think people were being overly harsh when they beat it down.

Regardless, hearing about this makes one all the sadder regarding Mr. Ledger’s passing.

Would the third film have been considerably different with Ledger back in the role of the Joker?

I suspect so.

Would we have still seen Bane and Catwoman and Talia?

Perhaps, though I suspect Bane’s role would have been much smaller.

Still, a sad shame we never got to see more of Mr. Ledger, not only in this role, but likely in the possibility of having a robust career with many other interesting roles.

E. R. Torre Art

Sketchin’ 23 & 24

The past few days I’ve had Batman on my mind, or should I say a couple of the people around him…

First up is Heath Ledger’s Joker from the 2008 Christopher Nolan directed film The Dark Knight, the second film of his Batman trilogy and the film many consider the best of the lot…

I thought that came out pretty good, though I impressed myself even more with my follow-up…

Back in 1997 director Joel Schumacher followed up his Batman Forever with the much lambasted Batman and Robin.  I found it so curious people essentially gave Batman Forever (featuring Val Kilmer in the Bruce Wayne/Batman role) a pass and hated, hated, hated Batman and Robin (George Clooney’s sole outing as the Dark Knight) so much.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t believe Batman and Robin is a great film by any stretch of the imagination.  But it was, IMHO, roughly on the same level of Batman Forever… a theatrical big budget version of the 1960’s campy Batman TV show.  As such, it fascinates me how much people can hate one and essentially have little to no strong opinion of the other.

Anyway, Batman and Robin featured the introduction of the character of Batgirl and they picked a mighty fine actress to play the role in Alicia Silverstone.  After wowing audiences with her sexy -and sometimes deadly!- youthful characters both in film and music videos, Batman and Robin would be perhaps her last big hurrah in terms of youthful movie roles.

In a way its too bad… I thought she made a smashing Batgirl, even if the film around her wasn’t very good.

So here’s to you.  Alicia Silverstone as Barbara Wilson (yeah, yeah, in the comics its Barbara Gordon, the daughter of Commissioner Gordon)… aka The Batgirl!

Movies

Weirdest movie news… perhaps ever!

I read about this movie news yesterday and I’m still more than a little stunned.  The article is by Mike Fleming Jr. and its presented on deadline.com:

The Joker Origin Story On Deck: Todd Phillips, Scott Silver, Martin Scorsese Aboard WB/DC Film

Todd Phillips is probably best known as the director of the three The Hangover films (he was also the writer of the later two in the series, which were IMHO quite horrid).

Scott Silver is mostly known as a writer and his most successful project was 8 Mile.

Martin Scorsese, on the other hand, needs no introduction, being the acclaimed director of such seminal films as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and, more recently, The Wolf of Wall Street.

So the article above states that these three individuals have gotten together to make a Joker “stand alone” film which explores Batman’s arch-villain’s origin.  Mr. Scorsese, it is implied, will serve as a producer and not direct.

Now, a few points regarding this article:

  1. How freaking insane does that trio of individuals coming together to make a Joker film (of all things!) sounds?
  2. Is it really wise to make a Joker film without Batman?
  3. What exactly will the tone of this film be?  The article indicates the film will be “hard boiled” yet at least one of these three individuals is known for comedies.
  4. It is stated the film will lie outside the other movie continuity, which seems to indicate we won’t have Jaret Leto playing the character.  Given we have Martin Scorsese involved, can Leonardo DiCaprio be far behind?
  5. I repeat: How freaking insane does this sound?!?

When I read the original article, my first move was to check the calendar.

Yesterday, alas, was not April 1st.

Over on various comment boards some people far more clever than I wrote that this sounded like a movie version of Mad Libs.

I agree.

Will this film ever get made?

I wonder.

And if it does, will it be any good?

We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?