Kevin Smith claims that Joker originally had a much darker ending, strange as it may seem.
Talking on his podcast, Fatman Beyond, Kevin Smith claimed that at one point, the final scene of Joker had a particularly bleak twist to it that would have further cemented Arthur Fleck’s downfall. (Spoilers ahead, naturally.) The movie played out much in the same way as it did in the finished film, with Joker’s disastrous talk show appearance causing riots across Gotham, and the Waynes leaving a theater after learning of the ensuing chaos.
This alleged alternate version of the movie apparently did not show what happened to the Waynes at this point, but things played out differently after Arthur Fleck fully embraces being the Joker and celebrates with the crowd. After being arrested and taken to Arkham, he has a conversation with a doctor at the facility, and then he starts laughing, claiming that it’s a joke that she wouldn’t understand. The movie would then end with a flashback, revealing that the Joker was the one who killed Thomas and Martha Wayne in front of their son, Bruce.
Unlike his stoic, but clearly shocked reaction in the finished film, Bruce was intended to scream and cry in reaction to the Joker’s heinous crime as the villain walked away. Moments later, Joker would shrug, turn back around, and open fire at the child. The End. Smash to credits. No epilogue with an attempted escape from Arkham.
Considering that this version of the Joker genuinely seemed to like working with children, such an ending would have been a jarring contrast with the rest of the film, but would have cemented the movie’s intended purpose of being a total standalone. Ultimately, the more open-ended ending for Joker (which explicitly shows that Bruce Wayne survived the night) plays into the ambiguity over what was real and what’s a product of the villain’s own insanity.
Here is the official synopsis for Joker:
Director Todd Phillips’ Joker centers around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone fictional story not seen before on the big screen. Phillips’ exploration of Arthur Fleck, who is indelibly portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix, is of a man struggling to find his way in Gotham’s fractured society. A clown-for-hire by day, he aspires to be a stand-up comic at night…but finds the joke always seems to be on him. Caught in a cyclical existence between apathy and cruelty, Arthur makes one bad decision that brings about a chain reaction of escalating events in this gritty character study.
Directed by Todd Phillips from a script he co-wrote with Scott Silver, Joker stars Joaquin Phoenix, Zazie Beetz, Bill Camp, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Glenn Fleshler, Douglas Hodge, Marc Maron, Josh Pais, and Shea Whigham. The DC Films movie is not part of the DC Extended Universe, and seems to play into Warner Bros.’s interests of making creator-driven superhero movies over necessarily building a hyper-connected shared universe… At least for the time being.
Joker is still playing in theaters and is currently available to watch on digital formats. The movie will see a release on Blu-Ray and DVD on January 7, 2020.
Source: Fatman Beyond
