The Batman Reboot JOKER Casting Thread

[Supernewbie]

Yes! He is also my first choice. Gabriel Mann definitely has the best look. He's also got the acting chops to deliver a great Joker performance IMO.

 

[BatmanGoesToRio]

I don't know why. But from all the villains the Joker is the toughtest to cast. I was thinking about Sam Rockwell but was not completely satisfied with this choice either.
The only thing I know: I want classic Bronze Age Joker in this reboot. You know, the Clownprince Of Crime like he was shown in Killing Joke, Five Ways Revenge, Laughing Fish... Who could pull that off?

 

[gwynplaine]

Michael Pitt (he was pretty scary in Funny Games)
Sharlto Copley
Joaquim Phoenix
(Too bad Tom Hiddleston is already Loki, he would have been good too)

 

[Keyser Soze]

Not sure about casting for The Joker, but what do we think about what kind of role he should play in any new franchise?

I think it's very difficult. The Joker as a character is pretty much as popular and iconic as Batman himself. When one shows up, it's just like a "waiting for the other shoe to drop" from the general audience in terms of the other following. But if you start with The Joker as the main villain of the first new film then not only do you risk Batman being overshadowed, but it means the movies would be repeating themselves, doing what's been done in two franchises before rather than exploring someone new or at least less exposed from Batman's huge, diverse rogues' gallery. If you use someone else and hold off on debuting The Joker until the sequel, you're just repeating the structure of the Nolan trilogy, which these will already undoubtedly be compared to.

Here's what my solution would be. The Man of Steel sequel will be introducing an already-established Batman. I'd say The Joker is already-established too. We don't see him in the Superman film, but in the canon of the film world, he's already Batman's arch-nemesis, and they've already fought many times. At the time of the first solo film, The Joker is in Arkham Asylum. Over the course of the story, something about the film's primary villain points to an association with The Joker, so Batman visits Arkham to interrogate him. This proves ultimately fruitless, but you get to have The Joker going all Hannibal Lecter, and you can establish both Arkham Asylum as a locale within the world and the relationship between Batman and The Joker. Almost establish The Joker as part of the core supporting cast rather than as an external villain to come in for a single film.

Then in the sequel you can have The Joker escape Arkham and start wrecking havok.

 

[Eddie Dean]

Posted this in a different thread, but here's cinematic equation for The Joker and got the sum of Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth, Dwight Frye as Renfield, Robert De Niro as Max Cady, James Cagney in The Public Enemy, Richard Widmark in Kiss of Death and Klaus Kinski in real life, divided by 70s David Bowie, Alec Guinness in The Ladykillers, Peter O'Toole in The Ruling Class, and Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates.

So...
[YT]d0PbwLTLKA4[/YT] (only clip I could find that wasn't laced with profanity)
+
[YT]FQ7fPsSiq_8[/YT]
+
[YT]tBSbjKyamRo[/YT]
+
[YT]2ObMTG1Kico[/YT]
+
[YT]U_WEvWcVoFw[/YT]
+
[YT]pVNEuC7GZoM[/YT]
÷
[YT]uhSYbRiYwTY[/YT]
+
[YT]wuIvga5t_Hc[/YT]
+
[YT]KOcJ338qYno[/YT]
+
[YT]dYDxxHrlmUg[/YT]
=
[YT]lb8fWUUXeKM[/YT]

Feel free to check my math.

 

[GREEN =w= DAY]

Michael Pitt and Ben Foster as of now are my top 2 choices for Joker

 

[hellblazer103]

I've been behind the idea of pitt as joker ever since I saw him in bully.

also, ben foster has shown he can play a great psychotic villain, but now i'm starting to think maybe he'd be better suited for zsasz.

 

[gwynplaine]

Posted this in a different thread, but here's cinematic equation for The Joker and got the sum of Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth, Dwight Frye as Renfield, Robert De Niro as Max Cady, James Cagney in The Public Enemy, Richard Widmark in Kiss of Death and Klaus Kinski in real life, divided by 70s David Bowie, Alec Guinness in The Ladykillers, Peter O'Toole in The Ruling Class, and Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates.
Feel free to check my math.

Good math. Could maybe be added to the equation:
Conrad Veidt in Man who Laughs, James Cagney in White Heat, Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter, Christopher Lee in Wicker Man, Malcolm McDowell in Clockwork Orange, John Cassavetes, John Cazale, young Donald Sutherland and Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

 

[hellblazer103]

way too many equations here . why not.... comic book joker , animated series joker, movie joker.... the actual character of the joker in general ?

i'm just sayin maaaayne

 

[gwynplaine]

Lol, I think maybe Eddie Dean was trying to evoke the spirit of the Joker and I'm just playing along and talking about the character in general

 

[hellblazer103]

lol, I know. I agree with most of both you guys' choices actually haha

 

[smallville fan]

Matt Damon

 

[hellblazer103]

"eey batsy, ya like apples ? "

"enuff wit dis crap johkah. i'm tiyad a' yah pranks "

(slaps Jason todd's corpse on a table )

" I just killed rahbin wit a crowbah. haow da ya like dem apples ? "

"....... "

 

[Just_Human]

Gaspard Ulliel

 

[Schlosser85]

I know it'd probably never happen, and it might seem a weird choice that I would never have thought of either, but after watching Bronson, the scenes where he's onstage in makeup doing a one-man show made me think Tom Hardy could maybe pull it off.

 

[Schlosser85]

I like the suggestion of Willem Dafoe.

Vincent Cassel looks the part and can be crazy but I'm skeptical of his heavy French accent.

Same with Javier Bardem's thick Spanish accent.

Adrien Brody looks the part, but I'm not sure if he could act it.

I liked the idea of Paul Bettany back when TDK casting rumors were flying around, and I still think he could be good. He looks the part, and Gangster No. 1 showed he can be crazy enough. In fact, he's halfway to being The Joker in that movie.

 

[hellblazer103]

I like the suggestion of Willem Dafoe.

Vincent Cassel looks the part and can be crazy but I'm skeptical of his heavy French accent.

Same with Javier Bardem's thick Spanish accent.

Adrien Brody looks the part, but I'm not sure if he could act it.

I liked the idea of Paul Bettany back when TDK casting rumors were flying around, and I still think he could be good. He looks the part, and Gangster No. 1 showed he can be crazy enough. In fact, he's halfway to being The Joker in that movie.

I like to think of gangster no. 1 as sort of a joker origin story

Spoiler

only replace his Freddie mays obsession with a batman obsession and take out the part where the person he was obsessed with was a mob boss and have him become the joker at the end instead of getting old and killing himself and uuuum idk wtf i'm talking about at this point lol

 

[Eddie Dean]

Play up the androgyny and go left field with this. Tilda Swinton. Boom.

 

[Schlosser85]

Swinton looks like David Bowie

 

[Eddie Dean]

I thought she looked like Conan O'Brien?

 

[Just_Human]

I thought she looked like Conan O'Brien?

that would be the president of Finland

 

[BatmanGoesToRio]

Swinton looks like David Bowie

David Bowie is my favourite for a more comic like Dr Crane / Scarecrow.

 

[BatmanGoesToRio]

EDIT: Wrong thread.

 

[Skrilla31]

It's never gonna happen - and for obvious reasons - but there was one man born to play the Joker and that was Jim Carrey.

 

[Keyser Soze]

What's Lachy Hulme doing these days?