Heath ledger is the Joker

Goodshape

I reckon ledger will be alright as the Joker. I think the fact that it's hard to see him as a twisted psychopath could work in the films favor and make his transformation into the joker more hard hitting.

Nicholson, in contrast, always looks a bit twisted. That's one of my major criticisms of Kubrick's The Shining too... there was no transformation there; he looked like a crazy fooker from the start.

missingtime

Ralph Fiennes for the joker

Wacker

missingtime wrote:

Ralph Fiennes for the joker

I think it is a bit late now for suggesting people at this stage, don't you?

Playboy

Personally I thought Sean Penn or Crispin Glover would have been good. Heath Ledger does have the talent to pull it off imo. I also think that he isnt too far off the look, he is tall, slim and has a huge mouth.

lostexpectation

spacecoyote wrote:

Yeah, i wouldn't have thought ledger would have the build for it, but could probably pull it off. Would have thought someone like Ed Norton or Adrien Brodie could pull it off, i can imagine both of them with that manic smile on their faces

actually they wouldnt' have been too bad either neither of them have done the manic villain thing.

Karl Hungus

Crispin Glover was definetly the man I saw as The Joker. I don't know how Heath Ledger will work out, but I wouldn't really make any second guesses here, as I think Christopher Nolan knows what he's doing. I'm just going to wait and see before making any judgement calls.

Tusky

Karl Hungus wrote:

Crispin Glover was definetly the man I saw as The Joker. I don't know how Heath Ledger will work out, but I wouldn't really make any second guesses here, as I think Christopher Nolan knows what he's doing. I'm just going to wait and see before making any judgement calls.

Im the same... dont know what to make of it but have complete faith in Nolan.

Brow

Glover was meant to be campaigning for the part where Nolan never really mentioned him in contention.

some choices made above are good, particularly Ed Norton but I'd have also like to see Steve Buscemi in the role.

Any thoughts on Ryan Phillipe as possible Two Face? It's a heavy rumour and with previous rumours of Justin Timberlake I think Nolan is going for someone popular amongst the ladies only to heavily disfigure.

lostexpectation

Brow wrote:

Glover was meant to be campaigning for the part where Nolan never really mentioned him in contention.

some choices made above are good, particularly Ed Norton but I'd have also like to see Steve Buscemi in the role.

Any thoughts on Ryan Phillipe as possible Two Face? It's a heavy rumour and with previous rumours of Justin Timberlake I think Nolan is going for someone popular amongst the ladies only to heavily disfigure.

exactly who wouldn't like to throw acid at justin timberlake

missingtime

Why did they have to bring up The Joker again anyway? No one will ever top Jack Nicholsons' performance.

aidan_walsh

missingtime wrote:

Why did they have to bring up The Joker again anyway?

Probably because he is the iconic Batman villain.

Tusky

missingtime wrote:

Why did they have to bring up The Joker again anyway? No one will ever top Jack Nicholsons' performance.

Cant have a series of Batman films without the Joker, is like toast without butter.

Brow

I liked Jack as the Joker but all the hardcore comic readers hate that portrail of the Joker. They say he was too goofy and not nearly sinister or creepy enough. Nolan wants a creepier rendition. I think he's gonna be more ugly and less purple in this film.

Goodshape

Brow wrote:

I liked Jack as the Joker but all the hardcore comic readers hate that portrail of the Joker. They say he was too goofy and not nearly sinister or creepy enough. Nolan wants a creepier rendition. I think he's gonna be more ugly and less purple in this film.

Agreed. Jack was great for the film that Burton's Batman was, but I can't wait to see what Nolan does with the character.

Batman Begins has started a far more interesting world and Jack Nicholson's Joker doesn't belong in it, and rightly so.

Still waiting for the enevitable photoshop mock-ups of Ledger as the Joker.. anyone find any?

He can pull off a wide grin at least : http://people.smartchat.net.au/~jhml/heathledger/Images/heath10.jpg
(could do with looking a bit more evil than that though).

Vokes

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news06/060720i.php
Not scary at all....but as a previous poster said, Nolan's Joker will prob be wearing a little less purple, and far more sinister.

Pigman II

I think in 89 Jack Nicholson did a great impression of Jack Nicholson, but that wasn't the Joker - at least not the Joker in my mind.

I hope the Nolan Sequel continues to raise the bar by delivering a real definitive Joker and not just some guy hamming it up for 2 hours.

missingtime

Fair points, I suppose. Didn't realise that the 'hardcore' Batman readers didnt like Jacks performance.
Hopefully it'l be done well though.

Brow

SofaKing wrote:

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news06/060720i.php
Not scary at all....but as a previous poster said, Nolan's Joker will prob be wearing a little less purple, and far more sinister.

Sure he doesnt look look scary at all there, but theyre going to disfigure the hell out of him. One artist rendition from ages ago is as follows. I threw in Two Face as well. It would be great to see that image on the big screen.

missingtime

Now i know what they mean by the Joker being a bit too 'goofy' in the original batman.
If they made him like that would be nuts. Once its not too glossy though.

quazzy

Hi all,

Just wondering if its confirmed that Two Face is going to be in the new batman film or is it just speculation???

Q

Karl Hungus

I have to say, I'm really impressed by the pictures Brow posted. If they take the Joker in that direction, I'd say we'd be in for the best vision of him yet.

Vokes

quazzy wrote:

Hi all,

Just wondering if its confirmed that Two Face is going to be in the new batman film or is it just speculation???

Q

Well there's rumours that Dent will be in this film helping Batman bring down the Joker, and then perhaps at the end (or even the start of the third film) he'll become scarred at the Joker's trial.


Impressive pics, Brow!

Mr Rivers

quazzy wrote:

Hi all,

Just wondering if its confirmed that Two Face is going to be in the new batman film or is it just speculation???

Q

In a June 2005 interview with Premiere magazine, Batman Begins screenwriter David S. Goyer said, "The next one would have Batman (Christian Bale) enlisting the aid of [James] Gordon (Gary Oldman) and [Harvey] Dent in bringing down the Joker (Heath Ledger)... but not killing him. In the third movie, the Joker would go on trial, scarring Dent in the process."

http://www.batman-on-film.com/b5newsarchives38.html

Tusky

Thats an amazing picture of Joker! wow.

BlitzKrieg

it will never happen as a movie...but if the batman movies keep on being a success...can someone doe a mini series about no mans land...or at least cash in on the series return to success and have a mmorpg about it.

mwnger

Hmm… now I would never thought of Heath Ledger as the Joker to be honest. But I certainly never saw Cillian Murphy as the Scarecrow either and that turned out better than i could have hoped. It seems that Nolan is consciously not going for the obvious in his casting choices for these films, probably to leave some element of surprise for the audience -and let’s face it, there’s very little 'surprise' element in the superhero genre. I can’t understand this dismissing of films that haven’t even been made yet based on the casting choices (not on this forum I hasten to add!) Considering the quality of Batman Begins surely people should trust Nolan enough to come up with something brilliant for The Dark Knight? (love that title as well)
And I really think he will. With the critical and commercial success of Begins he’s going to get a lot more freedom from the studio to do what he likes with this one. I really hope he goes down the ‘cop thriller’ route. Now that the origin story is out of the way they can concentrate on the Gotham plotline i.e. Batman, Gordon and Dent taking on the Mob and the corrupt elements in the GCPD while in the background a bigger threat to the city emerges in the shape of the ‘costumed super villain’ (which, ironically, is inspired by the phenomenon of Batman himself, in a strange manifestation of mass hysteria).
And I hope Gordon is portrayed better than he was better than he was in Begins, where he was somewhat of a clownish figure. In Year One and the Long Halloween he’s much more interesting, a bit of a square yet still a tough b*stard. For Dent, I’d love to see Guy Pearce, who’s been one of my fave actors of the last few years. He’s also worked with Nolan before, plus it would remind people of LA Confidential! And wouldn’t it be nice to see Bullock and Montoya pop up at some stage? You never know. Yep, definitely looking forward to this one…

Evil_Bilbo

Lets get one thing out of the way:

Tim Burton ruined batman. He ruined the character (michael keaton? wtf shorty?), he ruined the joker, he ruined the penguin and gotham. Jack nicholson has the coolest evil smile in the world, so why not let him do it instead of slapping a ridiculous facial prosthetic on him? He was never like this in the comics. He just smiles alot. Burton had him prance around start up companies selling hairspray that killed people (yeah - real fecking plausible idea) instead of being an unhinged freak who bombs and slaughters hundreds. He shouldve been called "The Joke" instead - thats all he was. We all know jack can act, but there's only so much you can pull off with a bad script, bad direction and a large piece rubber plastered to yer gob. Baddies running for mayor, doing dances and putting on mime and street festivals. Comical police officers straight from the camp tv series. taking massive liberties with the batman backstory. Thank god for nolan.

Nice pics brow, but I will freak out if the joker is badly scarred and has to wear a dumbass perma-smile. How stupid would that make the movie? Where are people getting this idea from? He has white skin and green hair, but thats it (hopefully) apart from the unhinged psychosis.

I thought ledger would be more suited to 2-face (harvey dent was supposed to be a ladies man), and would love to see sean penn as the joker (or maybe benicio del toro?), but I have total faith in Nolan and his team. They'll borrow heavily from comics etc for the joker's backstory (killing joke please!) like they did with begins, but hopefully they wont sacrifice batman's character development too much. Dont want this to be just a "joker" film.

Roll on 2008!

Evil_Bilbo

guy pearce would be slick as 2face.

BlitzKrieg

so am i right in assuming people want the joker storyline to feature Jim Gordon extensively in the narrative rather then having him go 1 on 1 with the bat?

Wacker

BlitzKrieg wrote:

so am i right in assuming people want the joker storyline to feature Jim Gordon extensively in the narrative rather then having him go 1 on 1 with the bat?

I can only speak for myself (and maybe other comic-book geeks will agree with me), but that is exactly what I want. It would be impossible for Batman to fix Gotham on his own, eventually the GCPD are going to have to do their thing. Batman can help clean up the police force though, while simultaneously getting involved in tackling street crime and battling the costumed psychos that followed him.