Batman: The Killing Joke
Short description
Batman: The Killing Joke is an animated crime thriller in which Batman races to stop the Joker after the Clown Prince of Crime escapes from Arkham Asylum. Batman arrives at the asylum to find that the man held in the Joker's cell is not the real Joker, who is already free in Gotham. The Joker targets Commissioner Gordon and his family, injuring Gordon's daughter Barbara, also known as Batgirl, and sets out to prove that even an upright man can be driven to madness. Batman follows a trail of clues that leads toward the abandoned amusement park where the Joker has made his base.
The film adapts the DC Comics graphic novel of the same name and was directed by Sam Liu. It is the tenth of the twenty-two films he has directed in chronological order, following Justice League vs. Teen Titans and preceding Teen Titans: The Judas Contract. Brian Azzarello wrote the screenplay. Kevin Conroy voices Batman, Mark Hamill voices the Joker, Tara Strong voices Barbara Gordon, Ray Wise voices Commissioner Gordon, and John DiMaggio and Robin Atkin Downes are also in the voice cast.
Produced by DC Entertainment, DC Comics and Warner Bros. Animation, the film runs seventy-seven minutes. It had a budget of about four million dollars and took roughly the same amount at the worldwide box office. On IMDb it holds 6.4 out of 10 from around 65,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6.6 out of 10 from just under two thousand votes. A critics' rating of 5.6 out of 10 from forty-six reviews places it somewhat below the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- The Joker is never addressed by name here. His name can be seen on posters, but none of the characters utter the word “Joker.”
- In the images of the Joker that Batman examines in his cave, numerous references are hidden on the screen. The fourth image in the top row is a reference to “The Dark Knight,” where the Joker, played by Heath Ledger, is captured by the Gotham City Police. The fifth image in the top row shows a bloodied or dead Robin, which is a reference to the “A Death in the Family” storyline, where the Joker kills the second Robin, Jason Todd. This storyline is featured in the animated film “Batman: Under the Hood” (2010) from the DC Animated Universe. The third image in the second row shows the Joker in the guise he first appeared in on the cover of the very first issue of Batman comics in the 1940s. The second image in the first row is a reference to a scene from Tim Burton’s science fiction action film “Batman” (1989), where the Joker was played by Jack Nicholson. In this scene, the Joker is shown in a television commercial.
- After the release of the computer game “Batman: Arkham Knight,” Mark Hamill stated that he would never voice the Joker again (voicing this character required incredible strain on his vocal cords) unless “Batman: The Killing Joke” was made into a feature film. He then changed his mind and said he would continue to voice the Joker, but only if Kevin Conroy continued to voice Batman. Conroy passed away in 2022, and Hamill announced that he was finished voicing the Joker.
- Work on the project began as early as 2009, but it was then shelved due to the box office failure of Zack Snyder’s “Watchmen” in the same year.
- According to Bruce Timm, the idea for the half-hour prologue came from himself, co-producer Alan Burnett, and screenwriter Brian Azzarello when they decided that the original plot of “The Killing Joke” was too short to be turned into a full-length film. They decided it would be logical to introduce the tragic story of Batgirl into the script. In 2016, Timm stated in an interview that he never particularly liked Alan Moore’s graphic novel. He added that the idea of introducing Batgirl and her romantic relationship with Batman was necessary, and that he had always considered such a plot twist logical, especially when he watched the “Batman” (1966-1968) TV series with Adam West as a child. However, in the original 1988 comics, Batman and Barbara Gordon were written as father and daughter. Timm found this detail “a little risky.”
- The design of the “Batmobile” in the film is based on the classic look of the car from the “Batman” animated series (1992-1994), which was also produced by Bruce Timm.
- Originally, it was planned that the animated film would be released directly to video, but after the announcement that Batman and the Joker would be voiced by Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, respectively, the project’s popularity grew so much that Fathom Events (a company specializing in broadcasting entertainment content in cinemas across the United States) and Warner Bros. released it in theaters for two days.
- The Joker claims to prefer “a multitude of choices.” In Christopher Nolan’s science fiction action film “The Dark Knight” (2008), the Joker repeatedly offers a variety of, often contradictory, explanations for the origin of his scars.
- In the courtroom scene (which is not present in the original comics), the jury consists of kangaroos. This is a reference to the expression “kangaroo court” (which literally translates from English as “kangaroo court”).
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